Ligatures are special characters that combine two or more letters into a single glyph. Some are functional, like the standard fi or fl ligatures, while others are more decorative and are designed to add character to a word or headline. Many SilkType fonts include discretionary ligatures and alternate characters. In this article, we’ll show you how to access standard and discretionary ligatures in Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Figma, Affinity and Canva.
Before getting into the individual programs, it helps to understand the difference.
Standard ligatures are combinations such as fi, fl, ff, ffi and ffl. They are generally designed to improve spacing or prevent letters from colliding, and they are often enabled automatically.
Discretionary ligatures are more decorative and optional. These are usually the ligatures that add more personality to a headline or wordmark, and they often need to be turned on manually.
In OpenType fonts, standard ligatures use the feature tag liga, while discretionary ligatures use dlig.
Standard ligature
Discretionary ligature
Illustrator gives you direct access to OpenType ligatures. Go to:
Window → Type → OpenTypeIn the OpenType panel, enable Standard Ligatures or Discretionary Ligatures. If the selected font includes a ligature for the letter combination you’ve typed, Illustrator will substitute it automatically.
If you only want to use one specific ligature, open:
Window → Type → GlyphsThe Glyphs panel lets you browse the characters included in the font and insert a specific glyph manually.
This is particularly useful for decorative ligatures, stylistic alternates and other special characters. You can also use the panel dropdown to display only standard or discretionary ligatures.
Select the letters you want to combine. If an alternate glyph or ligature is available, a small preview will appear below the selection. Click the preview to replace the selected characters.
You can also select a text frame and click the OpenType shortcut at the bottom of the frame. A small menu will appear, allowing you to enable the OpenType features you want to apply to the selected text.
For standard ligatures:
Select your text and go to:
For discretionary ligatures:
Select your text and go to:
InDesign will then substitute eligible letter combinations automatically.
The Glyphs panel in InDesign also lets you browse the characters included in the font and insert a specific glyph manually.
Select the text layer or characters you want to edit, then go to:
Window → Character → Panel Menu → OpenTypeEnable Standard Ligatures or Discretionary Ligatures. Photoshop also supports other OpenType features, such as contextual and stylistic alternates, when they are included in the font.
Or you can just press the ligature button in the panel.
You can also use the Glyphs panel to browse available characters and insert individual ligatures manually.
Figma supports a range of OpenType features directly.
Figma uses Rare Ligatures for discretionary ligatures. If the selected font does not support a particular OpenType feature, that option will not be available.
You can also find stylistic sets and other alternate letterforms in the same typography settings.
Affinity supports OpenType features, including standard and discretionary ligatures.
Select the text you want to edit and go to:
Window → Text → TypographyFind the Ligatures options and enable Standard Ligatures or Discretionary Ligatures, depending on what you want to use.
Here’s the thing about Canva: it currently supports standard ligatures, but not discretionary ligatures. Hopefully that changes in the future.
There is, however, a reliable workaround, and it does not involve copying ligatures from Font Book.
First, let’s look at Canva’s standard ligature setting.
Select your text box and go to:
Advanced settings → More settingsAt the bottom of the panel, you’ll find an on/off setting for Standard Ligatures. This works for standard OpenType ligatures such as fi, fl, ff, ffi and similar combinations, depending on what the font includes. Standard ligatures use the OpenType liga feature.
+
The most reliable Canva workaround we’ve found is to use Affinity first. Affinity is free and gives you much more control over OpenType features, including discretionary ligatures. If your project allows it, we recommend working with the typography there. But if you still want to finish your layout in Canva, you can convert the finished type to vectors and bring it across.
Because the text has been converted to vector shapes, the ligatures will remain exactly as they appear in Affinity. This method also works for other OpenType features, such as stylistic alternates.
The trade-off is that the text is no longer editable as text once it has been converted to curves. If you need to change the wording, you’ll have to make the edit in Affinity and copy the updated version back into Canva.
You may have seen another workaround online that suggests copying a decorative ligature from Font Book and pasting it into Canva.
This only works when the ligature exists as its own encoded character.
Most modern OpenType ligatures do not work that way. Instead, the font takes a normal sequence of characters, such as c + t, and replaces them with a ligature when the appropriate OpenType feature is enabled. Discretionary ligatures use the dlig feature for this substitution.
This is why type designers generally build decorative ligatures as OpenType substitutions rather than assigning each one its own Unicode value.
If Canva does not support the OpenType feature that activates the ligature, copying the glyph from Font Book will often revert it back to the original letters.
That’s it. Once you know where the OpenType controls live, accessing ligatures is usually very simple. If a font includes them, the main thing is knowing whether you’re looking for standard or discretionary ligatures and which setting your program uses.
If you want to test them yourself, several SilkType families include extensive ligature sets, and all SilkType fonts are available to try for free.
