Fields Of Heather: Free Ligature Fonts & How to Use Them

This weeks free font bundle is ligature fonts. Here's a quick look at what that means, and how to use them, as well as a list of FREE Ligature fonts, for when this bundle is no longer free.

Definition of Font Ligature

"A ligature is a glyph that combines the shapes of certain sequences of characters into a new form that makes for a more harmonious reading experience. A common example is the “fi” ligature, which combines a lowercase “f” and a lowercase “i” into a single glyph so that the shoulder of the f doesn’t clash with the dot of the i."

My favorite thing about ligatures is that unlike with glyphs, they happen automatically. No need to use a character map, or search for them - they just appear when you type. Well - when you type in pretty much any other program except Design Space. But we'll address that in a minute.

First, here's a cheat sheet of font terms for Cricut Users: Kerning, Ligatures, glyphs, etc.

Find the Font Term cheat sheet here:
https://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2020/12/cheat-sheet-font-terms.html

=================

Ligatures Are Not Automatic In Design Space

TOP - Typed In Design Space

BOTTOM - Typed in Fontlab Pad

Although Design Space has fixed many, many of their issues with text not displaying properly, DS still uses a unique method of dealing with fonts - so although the spacing is generally fine, the program still does not read everything the designers program into the fonts. Such as ligatures. Design Space can't read ligatures. Many of us who have been using Design Space a long time were already accustomed to using fontlab pad, back when it was necessary to overcome Design Spaces weird spacing issues with system fonts. I still often use FLP, simply out of habit. It can read fonts from Zip files, there's no need to install them, which can come in handy too.

For more information on downloading and using Fontlab Pad
https://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2018/01/using-fontlabpad-with-cricut-design.html

Please note - you only need the FREE utility for this, not the paid program.

=========
About That Limited Time Free Bundle

For the first week of June, this is the freebie of the week

https://bit.ly/3IRlzzf

After this week, if you go to that link and search, at the top, for ligature font bundle, you will find a variety of options. Most of the bundles are around $20. You can also purchase each of the fonts individually, but they will run you about $10 each, making the bundles a much better deal. I've started a list of FREE ligature fonts at the bottom of this post, and I'll add to it as I find them - if you have suggestions, please feel free to message me, or post them in the comments.

==========

A TIP

For Sorting Fonts Out Of Bundles Like This

This is in Windows, other operating systems may look different, but may have the same basic option.

After you have unzipped the files, click on the folder. On the top right, in the search bar, type "OTF"

You will then see all of the OTF files in the folder. Select all the files, copy, and paste into a new folder - deleting the original folder with all of the extras and subfolders.

=========

Why OTF?

When there is an option, choose OTF. TTF will work fine - but OTF can hold many more characters, so sometimes there will be more fun glpyhs and combos in OTF.

======================

The Three Fonts In The Header

The Top Font is - Glitten

The Middle Font is NOT FREE - (Anymore.) - Garlic Butter

It was free about 3 years ago. It's still one of my favorites

The Bottom Font is - Herina

=======================

FREE Ligature Fonts

=======================

This is one of my most used fonts. And it's FREE!

https://bit.ly/3XyCWJr

Roxie Rossa has a few interesting ligatures

I'm now trying to decide what words use the fb combination, shown as a ligature here... I can't think of any English uses for that one. :-)

Download it for free from:

https://www.dafont.com/roxie-rossa.font

Please remember that often fonts from Dafont are DEMO use only, and do not include all of the extras included in the full font. For this font however, the full font is included in the download. Personal use only/

===============