I’ve found several sites that explain how to make a True Type font, but none of them mention ligatures. I really want to make a font with ligatures. Does anyone know how I can make this work?
Macromedia has a program named Fontographer that will let you do just about everything you can imagine. As well as allowing ligatures, you can set kerning pairs, leading, spacing, you name it. If you are involved in education or have a child that is a student, you can get the educational price (which is true for most software) from any number of online vendors.
The Digital Typography SourceBook by Marvin Bryan is an excellent book that’s chock-full of useful (as well as esoteric) information on the subject.
Good luck in your endeavors,
I picked up Fontographer 4.0.2 (or whatever the most current version number is) on eBay for about $130. This sounds like a lot for software, but keep in mind that Fontographer retails for around $400. Also, the program hasn’t been updated in at least 5 years, so you may have difficulty finding it anywhere but online. It’s not as though you can go to CompUSA and pick one up tomorrow.
I don’t believe I own the book, but I do remember leafing through it once and though it neat. Any book that shows you typographical characters, shows you a variety of designs of that character, and tells you its name and other information about it will be valuable to you.