7.3. Ligatures, Small caps fonts and expert fonts
7.3.1. Ligatures
Properly spacing fonts brings with it all sorts of issues. For example, to properly typeset the letters ''fi'', the i should be very close to the f. The problem is that this causes the dot on the i to collide with the f, and the serif on the head of the i to collide with the horizontal stroke of the f. To deal with this problem, font collections include ligatures. For example, the ''fi'' ligature character is a single character that one can substitute for the two character string ''fi''. Most fonts contain fi and fl ligatures. Expert fonts discussed later often include extra ligatures, such as ffl, ffi, and a dotless i character.
7.3.2. Small caps fonts
Small caps fonts are fonts that have reduced size upper case letters in place of the lower case letters. These are useful for writing headings that require emphasis ( and they are often used in LaTeX ). Typically, when one writes a heading in small caps, they use a large cap for the beginning of each word, and small capitals for the rest of the word ( ''title case'' ). The advantage of this over using all caps is that you get something that is much more readable ( using all caps is a big typographic sin ).
7.3.3. Expert fonts
Expert fonts consist of several extras designed to supplement a typeface. These include things like ligatures, ornaments ( much like a mini-dingbats collection designed to go with the typeface ), small caps fonts, and swash capitals ( fancy, calligraphic letters ).
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