Make a character in a font look like multiple characters of the same font

Question

I have a free font in TTF and WOFF form. I want to create a ”multi-character”, by which I mean a character that when entered will be rendered as other (multiple) characters of that font. For example that when the user types 9 it is actually rendered how Stack Exchange is rendered in that font (yes the whole word). It’s not a monospace font.

Right now, I am using Font Creator from High-Logic and I’ve created a new glyph and am copying the individual glyphs to make a my multi-character. Besides character spacing (I will have to figure out what’s the right value for that), is there anything else I should take care of?

Answer 1

If I understand correctly, what you want can be achieved using an OpenType multiple substitution. I do not know, how this is done in your program and whether it is capable of cerating such features at all, so I can only give you the general idea:

1. Create a lookup of the multiple substitution type and assign it to some feature. Probably you want a feature that is enabled by default, such as ccmp – though there is probably a feature that fits better, but that’s only a question of good practice and should not affect whether it actually works.
2. Add a new subtable to that feature.

3. Add an entry to that table corresponding to what you want to have replaced. In FontForge this would be:

   • Base Glyph Name: 9
   • Replacement Glyph names: S t a c k space E x c h a n g e

After this and if the corresponding feature is activated (which in particular requires an OpenType-capable program), whenever somebody types 9 in that font, the font will output Stack Exchange. The kerning (i.e., the spacing of letters) should be as usual in that font.

Something similar can be probably done with other intelligent font technologies such as Graphite or AAT.