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Kerning stops at -1020 and goes no further (Drop Caps) [1.8.531]


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Following on this thread, I tried to use a layered font for a multicolor drop cap in Publisher in a following manner:

  • I made a Drop Cap spanning over 3 characters (to the right) and 4 lines down.
  • The font is LTC Goudy Initials (3 layers) and you can find it here
  • I changed the format of each Drop Cap character to represent one layer of the font - background, floral motives and the letter itself - along with the colors.
  • Using Kerning, I moved the both remaining characters on top of the original Drop Cap.

Now what happened: after about -1020 value of Kerning, the character didn't move, leaving some white outlines, suggesting imperfect overlay. The problem is not in the font, I checked (when used in three separate layers, everything is fine). I suppose there is some kind of limitation for the Kerning value, that is actually set, and this is a bit over. You might consider extending the limit value for Kerning.

If there was another solution for layered fonts/drop caps like a possibility to consecutively apply three styles resulting in three layers acting as one, that would be very nice. Of course,  I understand that is it probably not worth the effort for such a niche usage, when an alternative solution exists.

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On 1/16/2020 at 1:25 PM, Fantomas.CZ said:

I suppose there is some kind of limitation for the Kerning value,

Concerning kerning I m not able to choose other than '0‰'  or 'Auto', – all other options in the list are greyed out.
Though I may type a custom value, it jumps back to 0 ‰ as soon I confirm with enter or tab.

kerning.jpg.19f16c132fb81dfd5286f92617a20c00.jpg    

 

Whereas I am able to set a tracking value quite high, e.g. '–99999'

tracking.jpg.fe7e7b9fb861b12b19c03a72c3d7e851.jpg

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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10 hours ago, thomaso said:

Concerning kerning I m not able to choose other than '0‰'  or 'Auto', – all other options in the list are greyed out.
Though I may type a custom value, it jumps back to 0 ‰ as soon I confirm with enter or tab.

As you have realised yourself, the tracking value is completely useless here, because it influences the entire paragraph. However this must be some kind of problem on your side, because I managed not even to set the almost right value on three consecutive letters, but it also almost works. The word is actually "HHHospodine."

1918044169_Screenshot2020-01-18at14_07_38.thumb.png.7e6fa9cb69136ee9cc0ef10c14cb4ab4.png

If you look at the enlarged version below, you will see the alignment is not ideal and it shows of course even in the printout.

And well, also hyphenation doesn't work... (it's in a table, there were some mentions about it, but it should be fixed anyway...

561155370_Screenshot2020-01-18at14_08_04.thumb.png.6f54610b2cc552ed9b55caca6db19ea1.png

 

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12 hours ago, thomaso said:

Concerning kerning I m not able to choose other than '0‰'  or 'Auto', – all other options in the list are greyed out.
Though I may type a custom value, it jumps back to 0 ‰ as soon I confirm with enter or tab.

Where do you have your text caret placed?

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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1 hour ago, Fantomas.CZ said:

As you have realised yourself, the tracking value is completely useless here, because it influences the entire paragraph.

In my experience I still can't apply a custom value for kerning but for tracking only. There I can apply diffefrent values within a paragraph and/or word. In this sample the second line shows two different values (–400, –3500) assigned to the characters BC when they were selected. The third line shows the same pair of values but assigned with the cursor just placed between B and C (and no character selected).

I don't experience a limit for the numerical value – instead the limitation is the position of the first affected character: no char can be moved  further left than the first affected char. That means, above a particular value, though I can increase the value it won't change the char positions.

1767719885_trackingselectionvsnone.jpg.4868f073dd4aa44caf10b3a635d3dd1b.jpg

 

I also noticed, that the given value in Character panel > Tracking can show wrong values if more than 1 value exists in the selected text frame.
This, I guess, is still the already reported issue with value fields and their lack of an UI which makes clear if more than 1 value is active (e.g. by showing a value in gray color or brackets).

Also it appears to happen occasionally for high values (I can't detect a rule) that I get different visual result in the text frame depending on whether value is either typed into the field or set by the arrow up/down triangle buttons.

 

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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On 1/16/2020 at 4:25 AM, Fantomas.CZ said:

Following on this thread, I tried to use a layered font for a multicolor drop cap in Publisher in a following manner:

  • I made a Drop Cap spanning over 3 characters (to the right) and 4 lines down.
  • The font is LTC Goudy Initials (3 layers) and you can find it here
  • I changed the format of each Drop Cap character to represent one layer of the font - background, floral motives and the letter itself - along with the colors.
  • Using Kerning, I moved the both remaining characters on top of the original Drop Cap.

Now what happened: after about -1020 value of Kerning, the character didn't move, leaving some white outlines, suggesting imperfect overlay. The problem is not in the font, I checked (when used in three separate layers, everything is fine). I suppose there is some kind of limitation for the Kerning value, that is actually set, and this is a bit over. You might consider extending the limit value for Kerning.

If there was another solution for layered fonts/drop caps like a possibility to consecutively apply three styles resulting in three layers acting as one, that would be very nice. Of course,  I understand that is it probably not worth the effort for such a niche usage, when an alternative solution exists.

Have you tried moving the bottom character with a positive value? The width of the different glyphs is going to mess you up.

Personally I would just make a collection of the letters as images and then drop them in as inline images, set to point size and enlarge.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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8 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Where do you have your text caret placed?

Ah, thank you, Old Bruce, for this hint. I had tried kerning before only with characters selected. Now with just placing the cursor between B and C I can assign custom values. And again it appears there is no numerical but only a visual limitation: the left edge of the first affected character (like for tracking).

680349099_kerningnoselection-5000.jpg.8666213420b8b8b8c5c72ec4f245f0a8.jpg

 

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

Personally I would just make a collection of the letters as images and then drop them in as inline images, set to point size and enlarge.

As in the OP's other thread, a "better" work-around is to use separate text boxes for each letter in the series formatted with the appropriate font, align them, group them and pin them in-line. Then at least they are vector/fonts that hit a pdf.

Well, I was wrong above...leaving the incorrect text because I wanna prove I've earned my avatar. At least I couldn't get pinning to work properly.

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2 hours ago, Fantomas.CZ said:

the alignment is not ideal

I obviously had misunderstood the OP's issue in my posts above, Sorry!

Concerning alignment & perfect fit it appears to work for me, at least in these two sample fonts (which aren't layered like the one in the OP).
So possibly it *IS* the specific font file of the OP which prevents a correct alignment with kerning?

2118931781_kerningalignmentperfectfit1.jpg.f032497470f28c3b6f17fe701b510ef1.jpg

1269204994_kerningalignmentperfectfit2.jpg.1645a5b027af6801a061482dc7642a58.jpg

 

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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On 1/16/2020 at 1:25 PM, Fantomas.CZ said:

what happened: after about -1020 value of Kerning, the character didn't move, leaving some white outlines, suggesting imperfect overlay.

Possibly a value above 1000 ‰ would not make sense if 1000 ‰ is a max as are 100 % of a color channel, like 100% in a circle diagramm or coffee in a cup, which is just full once it's 100% filled. So a kerning (or tracking) value would not define a distance from 0 to x pts, mm or pixels – but a limited percentage of covering of two chars on each other. Whereas this dimension of a char is defined within the font file ('width', 'flesh') and sets this 100 % limit. – So possibly the 3 layers of the letter H in the OP aren't defined correctly?

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Quote

1382370901_kerningOPswidth99.thumb.jpg.b27317b5d2269187d86d2384a2d65f4a.jpg

I wonder if the OP's offset in kerning results from the assigned font width.

Unfortunatly Affinity says "99 %" for a selected text frame even if only the first character is stretched that way. It can result in a visual offset of 1000 ‰ kerning:

835280623_kerningoTswidth98.jpg.8b75c8a2a1e36420e5b416b75936ec74.jpg

 

 

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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This is the H character with a preceding backslash (a solid square), so the pattern is \HHH

Capture_000403.png.03f010dbe4df32fb2b166e080990f27b.png

I also fixed a missing piece on the H.

Really, there should be at least one more style so some of the fitting issues would be lessened. The Regular style could have, maybe in the lowercase character positions (which are not used) to have an outlined rectangle without the cutouts for the Flora style that has to fit the present "holes" to look good.

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On 1/18/2020 at 5:33 PM, thomaso said:

Possibly a value above 1000 ‰ would not make sense if 1000 ‰ is a max as are 100 % of a color channel, like 100% in a circle diagramm or coffee in a cup, which is just full once it's 100% filled. So a kerning (or tracking) value would not define a distance from 0 to x pts, mm or pixels – but a limited percentage of covering of two chars on each other. Whereas this dimension of a char is defined within the font file ('width', 'flesh') and sets this 100 % limit. – So possibly the 3 layers of the letter H in the OP aren't defined correctly?

That would make sense and that's how it is in InDesign. The max. value is 1000, which should theoretically line up the letters start to start. But it doesn't and there is nothing you can do save for creating a separate text box for each layer of the font (it doesn't even need to be in a different layer).

However, although in intensity, you logically cannot go over 100%, in position you can, you would simply get with the following letter in front of the preceding one, which might sound strange to someone, but in cases like this, that is actually quite helpful. I understand there should be some limit, but it should be higher in such cases that for any reason, the font is not correctly spaced.

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On 1/18/2020 at 5:58 PM, thomaso said:

  

I wonder if the OP's offset in kerning results from the assigned font width.

Unfortunatly Affinity says "99 %" for a selected text frame even if only the first character is stretched that way. It can result in a visual offset of 1000 ‰ kerning:

835280623_kerningoTswidth98.jpg.8b75c8a2a1e36420e5b416b75936ec74.jpg

 

 

Thanks for pointing that out! When I saw it, I was surprised, how could I have missed it but then I realised that it was the same in all 3 letters and setting it back to 100% for all of them did next to nothing...

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On 1/18/2020 at 6:29 PM, MikeW said:

I also fixed a missing piece on the H.

Really, there should be at least one more style so some of the fitting issues would be lessened. The Regular style could have, maybe in the lowercase character positions (which are not used) to have an outlined rectangle without the cutouts for the Flora style that has to fit the present "holes" to look good.

Interesting solution. I wonder if those holes are there by design (it might help to create kind of 3D shading), or just by omission. And yes, they could use the lower case positions, but then they might have to charge less for the font :)

And how did you fix the missing piece? Did you add it in a font editor, or it was there somewhere? 

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  • 2 months later...
  • Staff

Sorry.

Thank you for reporting a problem using the pre 1.8.0 beta builds. It appears that a member of the Affinity QA team didn't get round to fully investigating this specific report posted in the bugs forums. We are very sorry for this oversight. Yours is one of a number of reports that I am posting this apology to, using an automated script. 

Now we have released 1.8.3 on all platforms containing many hundreds of bug fixes, and we hope your problem has already been fully addressed. If you still have this problem in the 1.8.3 release build, then the QA team would really appreciate you reporting again it in the relevant Bugs forum.

Each of those links above contains instructions how best to report a bug to us. If that is what you already did in this thread just copy paste your original report into a new thread. We appreciate all the information that you have including sample files and screen shots to help us replicate your problem.

This thread has now been locked as the QA team are not following the threads to which this automatic reply is made, which is why we would appreciate a new bug report if you are still have this problem in the release build.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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