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  1. Olá @Janderson Pilonetto e seja bem vindo ao fórum, Você poderia fazer upload de um arquivo contendo apenas o texto mostrado na captura de tela para que possamos dar uma olhada rápida? Obviamente, esse é um problema relacionado à fonte, por isso seria útil ver o que está acontecendo com o seu arquivo. Acabei de fazer um teste rápido usando a mesma fonte no Mac e não estou tendo problemas ao exportar para PDF. Só para esclarecer, você está usando a versão de largura fixa do Montserrat ou a versão variável? O software Affinity atualmente não oferece suporte a fontes variáveis, daí a pergunta, embora eu não esperasse ver o que você está vendo, mesmo se estiver usando a versão variável da fonte. ________________________________________ Hi @Janderson Pilonetto and welcome to the forums, Could you upload a file containing just the text shown in your screengrab so we can take a quick look? This is obviously a font-related issue so it would be helpful to see what is going on with your file. I just ran a quick test using the same font on Mac and I'm not experiencing any issues when exporting to pdf. Just to clarify, are you using the fixed-width version of Montserrat or the variable version? Affinity software doesn't currently support variable fonts, hence the question, though I wouldn't expect to see what you are seeing even if you are using the variable version of the font.
  2. It's been more than 2 years people are requesting support for variable fonts. I'd like to bring this topic up since it seems not getting any attention. Of course this affects all Affinity products and not only Affinity Publisher. And if basic font support does not make it to the essential feature requirements please make sure to handle this failure/bug with a bit of dignity (even Photoshop 6 disables the styles for variable fonts and does not display random nonsense) Cheers, Timo
  3. Another +1 from me, it is mind-boggling that this wasn't included in the V2 Affinity Suite already. A large amount of built-in Windows fonts and Adobe Fonts fonts are distributed as variable fonts and are thus barely usable with usually only one font weight selectable. This is a major pain point when using fonts in the Affinity Suite and I hope it gets addressed soon.
  4. Hi there! New to the forum, long time user of design software. I thought I'd throw my $0.02 into the ring here as this has recently been a pain point for me. Variable font support isn't only about what cut of a typeface you prefer using, it's also massively helpful when authoring typefaces. Whereas users get the option of interpolating between different axes, typeface designers no longer have to create and maintain as many individual letterforms and can also rely on interpolation to generate different cuts of the font, either statically or through a variable font file. Don't need that when designing? That's cool! Stick to the regular weights from 100-900 or use static exports (currently the only option we have in this software), but variable fonts are unquestionably the direction the industry is going in because of the flexibility offered to users and lower effort required from type designers for the same product. Another key advantage of variable fonts hold over static cuts lies in web design and animation, two fields that aren't currently served by Serif's software. These use cases don't matter when exclusively using the Affinity suite of tools, but it's not acceptable to be unable to match styles used elsewhere — especially when required by brand guidelines. On our website, variable fonts allow us to serve a single .WOFF2 file with support for both sans and semi-monospaced text at any weight we choose while using a fraction of the size that would otherwise be required when serving static cuts. We also get to smoothly interpolate between weights for things like hover states. In this specific example, we use Recursive as one of our brand fonts. Currently I am unable to use the Affinity suite to set text with Recursive's monospaced axis set to 0.51 (semi monospaced with added slab serifs) due to lack of variable font support. We use Recursive set to mono=0.51 for the better spacing afforded in instances where a monospaced font is good to convey information (this text is data or for branding reasons, we use it for titles), but doesn't actually benefit from actually being monospaced. It's become such an issue when creating graphics for our brand that I'll probably have to buy Illustrator again, what a bummer! In closing, I feel like I read somewhere that this would require a fairly significant overhaul to the entire type rendering engine. As somebody who works in software I understand that changes like this may seem small to end users but can actually be quite a large undertaking to implement. Something that I've been very impressed with regarding Affinity's suite of tools is the care put into creating a software package that is both cohesive for end users while remaining technically consistent, generally with a focus on doing things correctly — especially regarding colour. All I ask is when prioritizing future features, maybe consider bumping variable font support up the list? I'm excited for the day your already pretty good type rendering engine becomes best-in-class!
  5. Why would SVG require variable fonts, Fonts are always converted into outlines. and we essentially export raw curves to other apps. Variable fonts is required for the user interfaces in Affinity, ideally respecting how they appear in browser engines. For interface design it might be useful to have a way to export the values as copy pasteable css code. Certain variable fonts have features that go beyond the typical typeface capabilities of line thickness or slant, like actually deforming, changing colours or their entire pattern. But with PDFs couldn't it be substituted during export by the closest static variant of that typeface or also baked like it is with svg?
  6. Every embedded font is a "new font." The original full static font is never embedded. The original full variable font is never embedded. A collection of text character data and shapes is embedded. That collection may be a full character set, or a sub-set of those characters. Characters (with a code point) does not include all the glyphs in a font. No OpenType alternate glyphs are included (except those shapes used for a character). So no full set of small caps, no set of alternate figures, no unused swashes, no unused character variants, no unused contextual alternates, no localization alternates, no discretionary ligatures, no stylistic sets, etc., etc. The application may embed the alternate shapes from some of those features. No OpenType code is embedded - so there is no OpenType connection between the embedded character codes and the alternate shape embedded. A character code is there, and a shape is there. The application may have substituted the shape based on some OpenType code. A particular character code may have many different shapes associated with it. With a static font, the application chooses which shape is embedded based on features selected. With a variable font, the application chooses which shape is embedded based on features selected. And what ends up in the PDF is exactly the same. Does a fully editable, full featured static font get embedded? No. Does a fully editable, full featured variable font get embedded? No. I do not know if OpenType font data will ever end up in the PDF specifications. But OpenType modified alternate shapes work in PDFs right now. I do not know if variable font data will ever end up in the PDF specifications. But variable font modified alternate shapes work in PDFs right now. So I do not know why there is this focus on "embedding a variable font." That would only matter if the PDF spec is someday modified to be a truly editable file format which supports font technologies that it does not support now - such as OpenType and variable fonts. I doubt that will ever happen. It is my understanding that in the very early days of PDF you could embed essentially an actual full font, but that practice was stopped many, many years ago. Adopey does not want their full fonts embedded in a PDF, ever. There is no limitation on the use of variable fonts because of supposed PDF issues. It works now. So Affinity could support variable fonts now.
  7. Hi Dave, it will be interesting to see how this is sorted out in the Affinity apps. Some background information can be gathered from this thread on the FontLab forum. Adam Twardoch and John Hudson suggested different ways to put alternative spaces into the font or adjust the width of the space glyph depending on the selected script and language parameters, but as I said, especially in web browsers, none of these methods worked really well. I can see whether I can find my test fonts in the archive to give you some more information. Regarding interpolation, you are right: one has to distinguish between the capabilities of font editors and the OpenType specification. When you have a variable font setup in a font editor like FontLab or Glyphs, any glyph substitution or positioning rule that you define in the FEA syntax will apply to all masters in your font. Hence, you cannot do any useful positioning using the FEA syntax in a variable font setup. On the other hand, the OpenType specification clearly provides the means for varying positioning data along design axes. For GPOS data the variation deltas are stored in an Item Variation Store table in the GDEF table (see here and here). The problem is that there is no easy way to set up these variation deltas, given the current way in which font editors operate. So what is technically possible, according to the specification, is not really feasible at the moment, from the font developers perspective. (Hence, there are probably not many, if any, variable fonts out there that use GPOS other than for kerning and mark attachment.)
  8. I will say this: my MA students, future designers, ARE using variable fonts as we speak. I have been warning Serif developers all this time, and they won't listen. They have several high-value users and testers connected to the industry and academia at the highest level, following – nay, setting – the trends (guess what I'm about to do when I finish my PhD in… typography education? 🙄), and yet… here we are. Let's just ignore the 500lb pink gorilla in the middle of the room that is Adobe (they created the format, after all, and had already come up with Multiple Master fonts before it – I tried those on an ancient version of Ai running on a Basilisk II System 7 VM, and it's shockingly similar to the current implementation, down to the generic parameter sliders, so I'm guessing it just failed due to lack of support from type design applications, third party vector and photo editing and DTP apps, etc.), and look at one of Serif's actual competitors on the Mac, Sketch: https://www.sketch.com/blog/variable-fonts-improved-opentype-support-and-a-new-data-plugin-whats-new-in-sketch/ Sketch v.59, from 20-freaking-19, from four years ago, back when Affinity v.2 was just a blip on the radar (likely an internal Alpha, or a set of notes on a whiteboard, or something), supported variable fonts. Sure, Sketch is very much geared towards web and UX design, but there had been already such a request here in the forums the year before, as was already requested 2016 and heavily commented by yours truly the next year onwards! And I'm commenting here because a musician friend of mine (a musician who works in banking, not one of my design students, so you can see just how mainstream these can and will become), who uses a Mac, wants do do his own design work and variable fonts came up in conversation; I recommended him either Affinity or Sketch, but I'm guessing that if he enjoys playing with those, you won't get his patronage, and through no fault other than your own. 🤷‍♂️ Seven years, guys. Seven years. And at least six years of me warning you that it would eventually become a serious omission. There are now people, both here in the forums and out of them, literally skipping on the v.2 upgrade (or on Affinity altogether) because of this. This can't be a v.3 feature, it *has* to be added to v.2 at some point. No ifs, no buts.
  9. Some foundries are now releasing only a variable font. Which makes a lot of sense. The current advanced font development process now uses a multiple master approach, so the sources created are inherently variable. When the masters sources are done, push-a-button to export the variable font. Producing the static fonts involves additional steps, and compromises. Depending on the axes, the number of static fonts can quickly get unwieldy. Most people just think about weight and width. Using the OpenType "standard" ten weights from 100 to 1000, and the nine widths from ultra-condensed to ultra-expanded, and italics you get - 10 weights x 9 widths x 2 (regular+italic) = 180 fonts. Then lets add an optical size axis. What increment do you use for the optical size static fonts? Merriweather has an optical size axis of 6pt to 144pt. They only export statics at 6pt, 12pt, 60pt, and 144pt. Even with their limited weights and widths, that ends up being 120 static fonts. Playfair Display is being upgraded to include an optical size axis of 5pt to 1200pt. It also includes a weight axis, a width axis, and italics. Depending on increments used you could have hundreds of static fonts. Science Gothic (a Bank Gothic revival) has four axes: weight, width, optical size, and contrast. They had some discussions about how they could end up with thousands of static fonts (or variable instances) depending on the increments used. That is with just four axes. Roboto Flex has 13 axes. If you used an increment of just 10 for each axis, that would be 10¹³ static fonts. Additionally… What is the proper increment for the Mutation (MUTA) axis in static fonts? Or for the Gravity (GRVT) axis, or the Horizontal Rotation (HROT) axis, etc., etc.? So far I have documented 59 different variable axes. And many of those variable axes simply do not fit in a simple incremental pattern. All of these pre-determined static fonts may not be "just right." Variable fonts enable the designer to get exactly what they want, or require.
  10. Hi @Kimberly Smith and welcome to the forums, Affinity apps don't currently support variable fonts which is why you're seeing them listed in the font menu the way you are. You would need to uninstall the variable versions and then download and install non-variable versions for them to work correctly...
  11. It is a bonus that is included with, and as far as I know only available with, the purchase of a Universal license for V2 as an upgrade from the V1 applications. It's probably not what you're looking for. In general, the Affinity applications do not supply fonts. You can download and install fonts from many free sites, including Google Fonts: https://fonts.google.com (but be sure to install Static fonts, not Variable fonts).
  12. See top left, when installing a ttf file of variable weights from Google, they are not parsed correctly. Bitter-VariableFont_wght.ttf
  13. To expand on what @walt.farrell said, SVG can also use variable fonts in contexts that support it (such as modern browsers), using font-variation-settings. FWIW Illustrator does a really poor job of supporting this and I always end up going in and editing it by hand. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <svg id="Layer_1" data-name="Layer 1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 640 480"> <defs> <style> @font-face { font-family: 'Maru'; src: url("./maru.woff2") format("woff2-variations"); font-weight: normal; } .variable { font-family: 'Maru'; font-size: 48px; font-variation-settings: 'wght' 400, 'wdth' 200, 'ital' 0; } </style> </defs> <text class="variable" transform="translate(68.48 239.83)">This is a variable font.</text> </svg>
  14. @DWright I remembered a similar problem report with a different font (Gotham). That case also involved stroke outlines and artifacts on export. https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/168240-strange-font-output-error/ The root of the problem is the apply-stroke cannot handle when two nodes in the font are very close together. In that other thread I applied simplify to the character outlines to turn two very close nodes into one node. I did the something similar here with the Blacklist Bold font and merged nodes which were only 2-3 font units apart. This image below is the top left corner of the capital I character in the original Blacklist Bold font. Those two highlighted nodes are only two units apart. There are similar close nodes in the other characters (where you see the artifacts in the output). So what I did is merge those nodes in the characters used for the test. The test images below are: Export to PDF, and then export to PNG from the PDF. This is the BEFORE test (the original font). This is the AFTER test (after modifying the font to merge the close nodes). Note no artifacts. If Affinity is ever going to support variable fonts this must be fixed. Variable fonts have nodes that are very close to together, and even overlapping. And obviously a lot of static fonts also have nodes which are close together. If you want the Before and After modified fonts, both Gotham and Blacklist, just give me an upload link (Gotham is commercial).
  15. +1 Vote for variable fonts from me as well. A nonprofit I work for provides a Creative Cloud License for me to use in creating all their marketing content. I use the Affinity Suite for all personal and client projects. Jumping back and forth is a great way to compare products. (I use AI and ID primarily on the Adobe side and Publisher with Studio Link while using Affinity.) Variable fonts and RTL text are two of the biggest features I miss when using Affinity. Other than that, I actually prefer Publisher to ID in a lot of ways. (I love Studio Link!)
  16. A Google date search tells me the page you referenced was published July 20, 2019. I suspect that's the reason. Much has happened in terms of Adobe's support of variable fonts in the last three years. The variable fonts displayed perfectly in the PDF I made. Just to be sure, I emailed the PDF to my Android tablet that has no variable fonts installed and opened it. The type displayed perfect there too. I had intentionally set the width and weight axis of the glyphs to be in between the variable fonts' static versions, the PDF carried those intermediate values over perfectly to my tablet. As I mentioned earlier, when I open the PDF in Illustrator, the variable fonts are there, have the right combination of width and weight axis, weren't outlined, and hadn't been converted into static fonts. Using Illustrator, I'm still able to adjust the width and width axis. That said, editing the variable text within Acrobat (which I almost never have a need to do) is a problem because Acrobat apparently doesn't directly support editing the variable fonts yet. However, it displays and embeds them without a problem. This thread has headed off on a tangent. The real point is that, for whatever reason, Serif has not incorporated variable font technology into their Affinity suite, which for some of us, makes using their products much less useful and is keeping us tethered to Adobe until they remedy the situation.
  17. I believe this is incorrect, as I have the 9 static versions of the font installed (see this screenshot). Devanagari is offered as a variable font, but I installed 9 of the possible 36 static versions. The font can be downloaded from Google here, and it comes with both varieties: https://fonts.google.com/noto/specimen/Noto+Sans+Devanagari Perhaps your team can experiment with the two and see what's going on. In any case, if variable fonts are not supported, then why does it export properly at the Regular weight? Maybe a short-term fix would be that if Publisher detects a variable font, to render it in the app as Regular, just as it does when exporting. Thank you.
  18. As it turns out, no, I don't have Sitka. At least, according to the Font Manager. But it's odd, because when I Open the file, in either 2.2.0 or 2.2.1.2075, there is no obvious indication that the font is missing: There is no popup message ("toast") that the document has a missing font. The Context Toolbar shows the font as Sitka, in white and with no ? (I would expect red and with a ?). There is no Preflight error forr a missing font. The Font Manager says it is missing, and that Arial has been substituted. But there should have been some other indication. This has happened on both my Windows machines (one of which uses the MSIX installers and the other uses EXE). ---- Then I noticed that in the Context Toolbar, the Font Style field was blank, which is odd. So I clicked on it, and I got a bunch of styles all named "text". Apparently, Sitka is a standard font on Windows (at least, I seem to have it on both machines and don't remember installing it) or is installed by some software I have on both machines, and it's a Variable font. If I look in the Windows Fonts folder, and look at the Properties of those fonts, the Sitka fonts have names like SitkaVF-Italic.ttf
  19. I can’t understand the exaggerate of the need of Variable Fonts… Designers/art people/typographic people has for decades made stunning works, WITHOUT Variable Fonts… And, you can load Variable Fonts into Affinity Suite and use them as ordinary fonts with multiply styles/weights, but not as variable sizing… There are too many other features into Affinity Suite that goes before implementing Variable Font (Spiral tool, Blend tool, Data Merge/Books (iPad) etc etc…
  20. I think it depends on the typeface. Most variable typefaces retain much of their style DNA regardless of what variable instance is chosen. Roboto Flex is neutral enough that it can get disguised pretty heavily with certain axis combinations. As it stands, so many people abuse standard static fonts by artificially squeezing and stretching them out of their normal proportions. That will throw off online font ID tools like MyFonts' What the Font utility. I have an intense dislike of such manual squeezing and stretching of fonts, particularly default fonts like Arial, because I see so much of it in the sign industry. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard. Another bad one is Gotham (now that so many people have gotten hold of it). The Gotham typeface itself is a great design, but it looks downright horrible when distorted. The carefully balanced monotone strokes are no longer uniform. The whole thing takes on a fun house mirror appearance. The practice of crudely distorting fonts will make any graphics layout take on an air of amateur quality. Variable fonts that sport both weight and width axes come overcome much of that nonsense if the "designers" will go through the effort of actually using the features. I have some variable typefaces whose width axis will allow it to go from ultra compressed to very wide yet still keep the horizontal and vertical stroke thicknesses naturally balanced.
  21. May be better to ping Google Fonts (GF) to get the slanted fonts done. Over a year ago they commissioned someone to add the italics/slanted fonts. Progress was made, but it stalled for some reason. A GF person has continued the project with additional fixes and updates. And some new fonts were generated about four months ago. Download a ZIP of the current repository here: https://github.com/emmamarichal/lexend/tree/main The fonts folder has both Roman and Slanted fonts. So give those a try. The GF status tracker is here: https://github.com/google/fonts/issues/4237 Only install the static fonts. The macOS font picker shows variable font named instances, but you cannot actually use them all. The only thing you will get in PDF output is the default master font. Use the static fonts only and do not install the variable fonts as there will be name conflicts if you do. I do not remember if there is a similar in-progress repo for the Readex Pro. Will take a look tomorrow. May be.
  22. The SF interface font went variable in 2020 (IIRC). And it is a variable TTF. And there static TTF files available which match most of the styles (the dev fonts). What other fonts are now variable in macOS Ventura? What specific font(s) do you need to finish your project? Hopefully Affinity can get this fixed in the first update, and your old fonts will again be available. There has obviously been a change in how macOS Ventura handles these "Document support fonts" - and Adopey has already made the needed updates. Rubik does include both static and variable fonts. And it looks like you installed the variable fonts. Issues with the STAT table (where the style-linking is done in variable fonts) could explain only the Italics showing. OR ... Ventura could be confused by a STAT table being included in the static fonts. I just checked and the Rubik static fonts do include a STAT table (and they should not). Recently I saw an issue in the GF repo where their current font build process can sometimes inadvertently include a STAT table in the static fonts. And I have seen some other issues posted where this seems to be a problem in some applications. Perhaps it is now a problem in macOS Ventura. First, make sure you do have only the static fonts installed. Then, if you still have an issue - it could be this STAT table issue. To confirm this, I can send you some modified static fonts with that table removed. Then we will know for sure one way or the other.
  23. For this specific font the solution was to get the version of font where overlapping outlines were cleaned, but when I had a closer look on the issue, it does not seem that mere support of variable fonts of an app is the key to avoid the problem. E.g., CorelDRAW and VectorStyler both fully support variable fonts but both show the outline issue with Montserrat, and it also shows when exporting e.g. to PDF, on both platforms. The same issue shows also with many glyphs (but not all) in some variable fonts, like SF Pro, but not e.g. in Skia, where there are no overlapping outlines when the font is used stroked, nor are there any when the font is opened in font editors (Glyphs and FontLab 8 tested). So it would appear that it is a font specific issue, both in context of static and variable fonts, as it does not seem that an app can resolve this problem -- whether it supports variable fonts or not; in some situations like one presented here, one possible workaround could be creating a curves object with cleaned overlaps and then place a text object behind with zero opacity fill and no stroke, if it is important that selectable / searchable text is included in the export. outline_issue.pdf
  24. Are they variable fonts? Those kinds of fonts are not currently supported in affinity?
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