Affinity designer changing the size of circles (which represent a value)

[venu_vt]

Hi,

I am using affinity designer 1.7.1 in macOS. When I import a PDF for a little bit of editing, it is changing the size of the dots. Not sure what's happening.

Here is how the original file looks

 

and here is how it modified in affinity designer

 

In the original figure, size of the circle represents a value, but if it automatically changed while editing, this will give us wrong results. Also, the circles are slightly moving from the center in designer.

Any help would be appreciated. 

Thank you.

[Sean P]

Hi venu_vt,

Would you be able to attach a copy of the PDF you are importing please?

[MickRose]

I wonder if the circles are glyphs and designer is picking out the wrong one. That would explain the smaller size and the position issue.

[venu_vt]

Hi @Sean P, I am not allowed to share the exact PDF (it includes sensitive patient data). However, I generated a similar figure which is also behaving same in affinity designer. Here I attached it. Please check it.

Thank you.

test.pdf

[Sean P]

Thanks for the file. The PDF appears to be using a Type 1 ZapfDingbats font and displaying those characters as different font sizes. However as I don't actually have that font on my machine it is being substituted with Arial so will be using a different character at the same font sizes as the original PDF. Obviously the character used is not the same as the one in Zapf Dingbats and is appearing smaller. I presume this is what is happening on your machine? When importing the PDF do you see ZapfDingbats being replaced?

Are you able to get the software outputting these files to use a different font (that you have) or even output them as curves? As it stands this doesn't appear to be a bug with our software (we're currently don't support reading of embedded fonts in PDF files), just a side effect of using not having the correct font locally.
 

[MickRose]

I have ZapfDingbats BT and I get the same results as venu_vt. The font is displaying smaller. It's possible that ZapfDingbats BT is different to ZapfDingbats BT but when I use that font in InDesign it does seem to show at the correct size as the PDF.

[venu_vt]

Hi @Sean P, yes, I also see the missing font replaced by 'Arial'.  So the software is treating circles as characters?

From my previous experience with affinity designer, where I did not have circles in figure, everything was perfect (even if I tick or do not tick 'replace missing fonts with Arial').

But according to @MickRose, even if I have `ZapfDingbats`, it seems to change the circle size.

However, if I understand your response properly, there is no solution/fix for my problem, or did I miss anything?

Thank you.

 

 

[Sean P]

40 minutes ago, venu_vt said:

Hi @Sean P, yes, I also see the missing font replaced by 'Arial'.  So the software is treating circles as characters?

From my previous experience with affinity designer, where I did not have circles in figure, everything was perfect (even if I tick or do not tick 'replace missing fonts with Arial').

But according to @MickRose, even if I have `ZapfDingbats`, it seems to change the circle size.

However, if I understand your response properly, there is no solution/fix for my problem, or did I miss anything?

Thank you.

 

 

The software is treating them as characters because they are characters inside the PDF exported from what I presume is R 3.6.0. I've attached a screenshot showing your PDF in Acrobat Pro with the Preflight opened. This shows that those are text objects using ZapfDingbats. The screenshot shows that that speific object is using 18.53pt font size, which is retained in Designer when opened using Arial.

I do believe Acrobat is also doing something different with ZapfDingbats as the actual document properties lists ZapfDingbats as the font, but then says ActualFont 'AdobePiStd' and when you try to edit the text it reports back as being Adobe Pi Std. 

This link below indicates this font has caused issues with other software when trying to import and someone suggested that installing the font as a normal one helped. With that knowledge I searched my Mac for AdobePiStd.otf and then installed it like a regular font and then when the PDF is opened in Designer I can assign that as a font to use, and it gives you the correct sized objects.

 

[Sean P]

In addition to above, the link I posted suggested that the correct method is to specify 'useDingbats = FALSE' as part of the command line for the ggplot2. From what I can tell it looks like it is used by r, but thats just from a quick look. You'll have a better idea, as I've never used r!