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I don't get why the writer would format this as a PDF with a monospaced font but have "fi" ligatures.



It just adds flavor to it. Makes it look like a weird document you would stumble upon while flipping through boxes in your grandfather's attic.

It's silly, but given how interesting the write up is, I find it pretty cool. It's always good to have something that deviates from the boring, ad infested, JS guzzling norms of web design.


It's fine for a monospaced font to contain an "fi" ligature (to represent Unicode U+FB01), but it absolutely should not contain a "liga" feature to form it from "f" and "i". I'd personally not even create a "dlig" (discretionary ligature).

Not surprising to see this, because the rules are quite different for non-monospaced fonts (almost all fonts should have a liga feature for fi, and all modern text layout engines should respect it).

Source: I've worked in this space.


I think some software that creates PDFs does that. No idea why.


Because it's aesthetic.


æsthetic?




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