Font Height settings not working with all-small-cap typefaces
Working in MacOS 13.5.2
Illustrator 27.8.1
When setting type in a Area Type box, the default Font Height is snapping to the x-height of the text, but only when using fonts with small-cap style lowercase letterforms, rather than typical lowercase forms. When using a font with typical lowercase, the Font Height of the box is defaulting to the height of uppercase letters, as expected.
This behavior is happening to fonts installed locally on my system, as well as those activated though Adobe Fonts.
Selecting various settings for the Font Height option in the Character panel does not alter this behavior, for any of the fonts regardless of style.
Dan Rhatigan
shared this idea
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I see. I might guess it uses a mixed approach to that, and uses both values. Small caps fonts don’t really have glyphs that actually touch the set ascender line, and Ai is somewhat correct by adjusting the first baseline to fit the 'actual' visible ascender line.
I encountered a somewhat similar here, with font height options and the rounded fonts: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-desktop-bugs/suggestions/44639661-font-height-options-misbehave-with-rounded-fonts
I will let the developer know.
Thank you for the report! -
Dan Rhatigan
commented
Egor, I see the Area Type Options, but I think I have uncovered the detail that is throwing off the intended behavior. As a font developer, I would expect the “ascent” setting to be governed by the assigned vertical metrics for ascenders in the font, but Illustrator appears to be determining the ascent by measuring the uppermost contour of a single letter, apparently the lowercase "d".
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Dan, I understand the confusion, but I think I have an explanation for this. Please follow me:
1. Select two area text objects together, one with ordinary lowercase font, another with the small-caps styled font.
2. Go to Type > Area Type Options. Make sure you have Preview option enabled.
3. Take a look at the First Baseline option — it should be Ascent, since it’s the default option for a new area type object (unfortunately, there is no way to change this default parameter to be something else — and there is now a separate feature request for this, http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/47243432)
4. 'Ascent' stands for the maximum height of all ascenders the font has. You can imagine a small-caps font has a few. If you change the value to 'x Height' — you’ll get a correct result instantly, same as 'Cap Height'
Changing Font Height Options in the Character panel does not and should not influence the position of the first line of an area type text, it’s a separate parameter.
You can read more about Area Type Options here: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/manage-text-area.html
Does it make any sense? or is it me missing something? Please reply!
