~/toolstriggerfont

Triggerfont

Make a font's swashes and stylistic alternates work in Microsoft Word, by giving each one a character you can type.

ms word

Why Word ignores your alternates

The Windows shaping engine passes only four OpenType features to Hebrew, Arabic and other complex-script text: ccmp, dlig, kern and mark. Word's Stylistic sets dropdown, and every swsh, salt and aalt alternate, is silently discarded. Nothing you do in the Font dialog will bring them back.

The way in. ccmp is applied unconditionally and can't be switched off. This tool writes each alternate into ccmp as a two-glyph ligature — the letter plus a trigger character — so typing א~ swallows the tilde and leaves the swash alef. Every alternate also gets a Private Use code point, so it turns up in Character Map and works with Alt+X.

Bidi note. Digits sit in their own bidi run inside right-to-left text, so a neutral trigger like ~ gets separated from them and never matches. Digits default to #, which is a European Terminator and stays attached to the number.

Load a font

.otf · .ttf · .woff — nothing leaves your machine

Drop a font file here

or click to choose · OpenType, TrueType or WOFF

Starting the font engine…

Choose the alternates

Every row you keep gets both ways in: a trigger you type after the letter, and a PUA code point that makes the glyph visible in Character Map and insertable with Alt+X. Clear a trigger to give a glyph a code point only.

Keep	Glyph			Character	From	Type after it	PUA code

Rename family (adds “Alt”)

Unreachable glyphs ligatures and spare forms with no code point — these can only get a Private Use code point, not a trigger

Keep	Glyph	Name	PUA code

Try it, then keep it

this box is set in the patched font

Cheat sheet type the trigger — or type the code and press Alt+X in Word

Glyph	Type this	or this, then Alt+X	Glyph name

Download the patched font

Worth knowing

Pick a trigger that never legitimately follows that character in your language. ~ and | are safe after letters, # after digits. Avoid ' and " in Hebrew (ג׳, ז׳, acronyms), and % after numbers.
Kerning, mark positioning, ligatures and every existing OpenType feature carry over untouched — only ccmp and cmap are added to.
The text stays real text. א~ is still an alef followed by a tilde underneath, so it searches, spell-checks and survives a font change. Private Use code points don't.
Installing: remove the old version of the font first, then restart Word. Windows caches fonts aggressively and a same-name replacement often won't take.
Check the licence before modifying a commercial font. Editing for your own use is usually fine; passing the edited file on usually isn't.

Something not working, or have an idea for this tool? Tell me.