Create numeric variations for digital time display

Hello. Is there a way to create alternate glyph combos for numerals, similar to what you can create for alpha characters? I’m creating a new numeric-only font that will be used to display time on a watch face. Specifically for the numeral 2, I would like to create a variation that is narrower in width when used in the numeral “12”. So, when 2 is being used to represent 2:00, it has one width. When 2 is part of the number 12 (12:00), the numeral 2 will be narrower. Is this possible to map in FontSelf? Thanks in advance for any help!

Hello FTyler and welcome to this forum.

You can do it with ligatures. You probably know that in many character sets, “f” and “i” are moved closer together as “fi”. In Fontself you need a glyph for the “f” and the “i” and then you can create a third glyph that is “fi” and has the name “fi.liga”.
You can do exactly this with any kind of character combination, including numbers: “1”, “2” and “12” with the name “12”.liga.

Good luck,
– j.

Thanks for the quick response! I’ll experiment with ligature settings & see what I can accomplish.

Much appreciated!
-F

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