iconoclast

If you drag the Transparency tool on the rectangle and then set the tool to "None", it will appear as it should. Doesn't explain the strange behaviour, but solves it for the moment. Edit: As I just went in the history to the starting Position, the rectangle was still filled. And as I zoomed it after that, it wasn't again. Must be a bug, I think. Possibly it has something to do with the outline set to 100%?

For me (Windows-user) it works with a doubleclick.

Found another solution. Especially for lazy guys like me. 😉

Verry cool, thanks for that Garry! Works verry fine if you just draw a tear shape, rotate it 90°, apply a pressure curve to it, duplicate it, mirror the duplicate horizontal and vertical and move it to make the eternity-sign outoff it. Learned again a little more. 👍

Yes, your right, Fontforge looks a little too complex to me too. But have you tested the other solution: drawing that character and pinning it to the text? That is verry easy. If you have pinned your character and placed it by dragging to the right place, you can select and copy it, and then paste it to every place you need it. For demonstration I attached two screenshots. The character I created is the red one. After you pinned and placed it, it will run with the text like a normal character.

That is in fact a problem if you jump between different programs. I remember, I had a software that called layers "foils" (think it was PhotoImpact). Some programs call curves "pathes", Sometimes confusing, but finally it's only words. What counts is that and how it works.

I think there is more a technical difference between both options. To reduce the second method on cropping or clipping wouldn't do justice to it and would also be misleading, I think.

In fact you can even use the one with the crop-symbol in the same way as the other one. For example if you create an empty pixel layer, drag it onto the icon of your image layer and paint on the empty pixel layer, it will behae exactly like a normal mask. Or if you drag a vector object, blur it and drag it onto the icon of the image layer. The differences between masking and vector masking are not as significant that vector masking should be reduced to clipping.

Hi Roger! I haven't made it yet, but you could use the free software Fontforge to create your own characters and complete fonts. Edit: Another idea, but I think not the best: you could draw the character with designer, import it into your Publisher-document and pin it to the text.

I'm not really sure, but to activate "Use precise clipping" in the Preferences under "Performance" seems to solve the problem. Anyway as I tested it a minute ago. Without warranty.

Hi Alfred, thanks to you too! You don't need vector brushes for this. Just a curve to let the brush trace it. For example GIMP has this opportunity. But in my special case it would be even better if Designer would have a feature that lets forms follow pathes. For older GIMP-versions a similar plug-in existed (Arakne's "Follow Path"-plug-in). That would be better in this case, because the brushhead is made in Designer and has a directional lighting (3D-effect), that would be kept with the vector object in Designer, but of course not with a bitmap elsewhere or even in Designer.

Hi Walt, thanks for your quick response! That's what I was afraid of, because what I wanted to do will not work in Designer. I created some brushes by myself, that shall overlap while they get drawn. This isn't possible in Designer, but in Photo. But it is not easy to draw them accurate enough by hand. Even with the Stabiliser. For example this one.

Hi! Is there any opportunity to let a brushstroke trace a curve? Can't find it. Would be helpful for some kinds of brushes.

The problem with GIMP on MAC seems to be, that they don't have enough developers who are MAC-users.

One additional annotation for Windows-users: If G'MIC plug-in doesn't work with Affinity Photo and you don't want to install another program like GIMP or Krita, only to be able to use G'MIC, you can install the standalone-version of G'MIC.

Don't really know how it works on Mac. Until lately I thought that it would only need the 8bf-file (which exists since last year). But that doesn't seem to be enough. The G'MIC-side says, that they haven't built a version for Mac yet, but some users may have compiled one on their own. For me as a Windows-user G'MIC doesn't work in Affinity too, because I foolishly bought my PHOTO-version on the Microsoft Store. This version doesn't find G'MIC (just like the version from the Apple Store would, I think), no matter where you install it. But I still use G'MIC with GIMP, and that works pretty fine.

Can't find any informations about if Samweow is a Mac- or Windows-user.

You could even give G'MIC a try. A free Plugin with more than 500 filtres, formerly for GIMP and Krita only, but since last year also as 8bf-plug-in for Photoshop, Paintshop and Affinity Photo.

If you activate the gradient tool with the word selected, you should see the gradient-angle somewhere lying over your document. So the gradient is still there, but not related to the certain word you copied and pasted. I think this isn't unnormal, because the word was part of a running text, the gradient was apllied to.

Exellent question, even because the thread-starter seems to have left the discussion long time ago. It's not clear to me what he expected as an answer. Was he searching for the most similar font to Helvetica? I think that would have been a Helvetica-Mod, Swiss or Arial. Or was he only searching for a nice grotesque? In this case it would be interesting for what usage he wants it: f.e. print or screen?

That is possibly a misunderstanding. If you click on the button "Add Layer" at the bottom of the Layers panel, you will get a new layer ("Layer 1", "Layer 2"...). If you draw a curve, you will see that nevertheless there will be created a new sublayer. In other vectorgraphics programs it works just a little different, but not really completely different. In Inkscape for example, every new curve is an object, listed in the Objects panel (can't remember how it is solved in Illustrator, but I think it is somehow similar). But there is a seperated panel for layers. May sound better, but objects from different layers can't be added, subtracted etc. or even grouped, so you have to copy them to one layer if you want to. As I sayd: different programs, different solutions. By the way: Sorry, I didn't really want to be unfriendly. But here are so many people who tell us that they are coming from Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, where everything is better. I often ask myself why they don't still use the Adobe products, if they are so much better.

If you click on the line or form you drawed, it will be selected and you can erase it. If you want to "dig" for it easily in the layers panel, rightclick on the line and click on "Find in Layers Panel" (Ctrl+K). It is true that Affinity Designer does some things in another way as Illustrator does. It's because it's anotther program. If you like the way Illustrator does it, use Illustrator. Your choice.

If you mean, that the duplication and transformation (move, scale, rotate) of curves or forms sometimes fails, it may possibly have to do with your modus operandi. Even one false click can cause that it does not work. You just have to click on the object and then to duplicate and move/rotate/scale the object - and this transformations will be captured to be repeated afterwards. After that you can click Ctrl+J again and again, and you will get transformed duplicates every time you click Ctrl+J. But if you click somewhere with the mouse or change the tool, the process will be stopped, and the captured informations will no longer work. Then you will have to start it again.

OK, I think the quickest way would be to drag the asset into the image and then export it as PNG. I don't know if there is a quicker way. To save your assets, you can export an asset category from the upper right burger menu. But not as PNGs.