Arial fontfamily not kompletly available

[AndreasDiehm]

I've got the trialversion of publisher. Now testing the program i dont get served the whole arial fontfamily. I am needing the komplete arial narrow group, normal, bold , bold italic and normal italic. Only Arial narrow normal is a chosable option.

Im using Windows 8 and in the windows fontmanager, the missed fonts are available. So, how can i integrate all these fonts in Affinity Publisher?

[Pšenda]

Affinity uses fonts, that are installed in the OS.

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, @AndreasDiehm.

As Pšenda mentioned, if the fonts are installed they should be available.

If you're seeing something like this:

then you can choose additional variants by either clicking on the pulldown where it says Regular, or on the right-pointing triangle next to the font name.

 

[AndreasDiehm]

Tank yor for your posts. But in windows, i have more arial fonts than in affinity. See the screenshots below. The whole narrow group (seen as Arial halb) only is shown as one single  "Arial narrow" !?

[Pšenda]

Interesting, I see them all.

In other applications, are they all visible? What to try to reinstall the font?

P.S. Looks like all duplicate "Narrow" fonts have been hidden.

[walt.farrell]

33 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

I see them all.

But why do you have so many duplicate "Narrow"?

[Pšenda]

59 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But why do you have so many duplicate "Narrow"?

Because Affinity can't write the correct font name?

[thomaso]

In macOS the Arial appears separated in family parts. – On windows it isn't?

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

Because Affinity can't write the correct font name?

Because the font names are generally incorrect, especially if downloaded from the web. But even so, Arial Narrow is one of those fonts that can/do give print providers grief as the names are often messed up.

And dang, I really wish I could resize the drop down and opt to hide the previews.

[AndreasDiehm]

Thanks for your help. I just deletet the old font and installed a new version. Now Affinity serve the whole fontfamily correctly! All is going right.

@thomaso:  in windows there is only one arial fontfamily with 9 parts.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

On windows it isn't?

See the pictures in my and Andreas's post.

[Pšenda]

13 minutes ago, AndreasDiehm said:

Thanks for your help. I just deletet the old font and installed a new version.

You're welcome, importantly that the problem has been solved.

 

44 minutes ago, MikeW said:

especially if downloaded from the web.

Arial is a standard part of Windows. I think, that Affinity has a problem with localized font names.

 

47 minutes ago, MikeW said:

I really wish I could resize the drop down and opt to hide the previews.

Yes, font list is too long and confusing.

[Fritz_H]

4 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

But why do you have so many duplicate "Narrow"?

Because the Affinity-Applications fail to display the Font-Name properly.

"Schmal" means  condensed/narrow
"Halb" literally means "half", "not fully" ... -"Halb Schmal" = semi condensed
"Fett" = bold
"Kursiv" = italic

I found an interesting Article about fonts on wikipedia.
Sadly its available in german only: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schriftschnitt    (perhaps Google-Translate (or any other) may help..?)
contains Infos like this...

--> Font-Handling of the Affinity Applications sadly is (still) pretty far from Business Class.

kind regards
Fritz

[kenmcd]

On 2/5/2020 at 1:03 PM, AndreasDiehm said:

I've got the trialversion of publisher. Now testing the program i dont get served the whole arial fontfamily. I am needing the komplete arial narrow group, normal, bold , bold italic and normal italic. Only Arial narrow normal is a chosable option.

Check your Windows fonts folder to make sure you do not have old/different versions of the fonts in there.
You should only see:
ARIALN.TTF
ARIALNB.TTF
ARIALNBI.TTF
ARIALNI.TTF

If you see variations of those with a number on the end of the file name (i.e. _0) they are duplicates
You want to delete any duplicates because APub has problems with the duplicates.
The files may be locked if the duplicates are the ones which are installed.
Then un-install the fonts, delete all the remaining Arial Narrow files, re-install the correct ones.
Now you should see only the correct four files above.

 

On 2/6/2020 at 10:20 AM, Pšenda said:

Interesting, I see them all.

Notice that all four of your Arial Narrow previews look the same.
It appears you also have an issue.
My guess is you also have duplicate fonts in the Windows Fonts folder.

 

On 2/6/2020 at 12:38 PM, thomaso said:

In macOS the Arial appears separated in family parts. – On windows it isn't?

APub displays the fonts using the Typographic Family Name and Typographic Style Name.
The Windows version of Arial Narrow has Arial as the Typographic Family Name.
So all the fonts are listed together with the other Arial fonts.
The Mac version of Arial Narrow has Arial Narrow as the Typographic Family Name.
So it is listed separately.

 

On 2/6/2020 at 2:20 PM, Fritz_H said:

Because the Affinity-Applications fail to display the Font-Name properly.

This is an interface translation issue not really a fonts issue.
You should probably post this as a separate issue if you think it should be changed/improved.

 

Keep in mind that you may have to clear the Windows font cache after fixing the font issues.

 

[Fritz_H]

8 minutes ago, LibreTraining said:

This is an interface translation issue not really a fonts issue.
You should probably post this as a separate issue if you think it should be changed/improved.

translation issue?
nope. Check the posting regarding "Bahnschrift" - variable Fonts. Chinese Fonts...

also: 
- Why are the Styles not translated? ("Bold" ?  should be "Fett" etc..)
-  4x Narrow? 


should be at least:
- semi condensed  (2 words)
- semi condensed bold  (3 words)
- semi condensed italic  (3 words)
- semi condensed bold italic  (4 words).

why counting words?
Because with other fonts, Affinity-Applications seem to work fine:

 

If the Arial-Issue was just a translation issue, there should be 2, 3 or even 4 wrongly translated words... not just "narrow".

Fritz

[kenmcd]

13 minutes ago, Fritz_H said:

translation issue?
nope. Check the posting regarding "Bahnschrift" - variable Fonts. Chinese Fonts...

Bahnschrift is a different issue. APub cannot properly read/display the instances in the variable font.

Listing Chinese fonts is a different issue. Inside those fonts the font name fields are actually in Chinese.
The user wants those to show up in the interface.

In Arial the name fields are all in English. I assume APub is not translating those as you desire.

 

13 minutes ago, Fritz_H said:

also: 
- Why are the Styles not translated? ("Bold" ?  should be "Fett" etc..)
-  4x Narrow? 

This looks like you have the same issue as Psenda above.
The preview is the same and the name is the same for all four.
This is probably because you have duplicate fonts in the Windows fonts folder.

Once the font issues are solved, again the lack of translation is an interface translation issue.

[Fritz_H]

18 minutes ago, LibreTraining said:

In Arial the name fields are all in English. I assume APub is translating those.

This looks like you have the same issue as Psenda above.
The preview is the same and the name is the same for all four.
This is probably because you have duplicate fonts in the Windows fonts folder.

The Operating-System* does know the correct Font-Style-Names ("Schriftschnitt"):

(* in my case: Windows 8.1 Pro)

Even the open-source Software Scribus (terrible UI, btw.) knows that
there is something fishy about the Arial-Font Microsoft shipped with the Operating System:


in Fact:
Publisher is capable to display the correct style when one of those 4 "Narrow" - Styles is selected.. just the Name is wrong

In the end: one more good reason not to use Arial.  :-)

@Serif: don´t forget to translate the Font-Style-Names...

kind regards
Fritz

[kenmcd]

40 minutes ago, Fritz_H said:

Publisher is capable to display the correct style when one of those 4 "Narrow" - Styles is selected.. just the Name is wrong

The font list display issue indicates there is some issue with the fonts.
It indicates at a minimum that the APub font cache is corrupted/confused.
You may or may not get the correct font on print output.
You may or may not get the correct font on PDF output.

The Windows font list is useless for solving duplicate font issues.
It only displays the last fonts installed.
It does nothing about the duplicates which exist in the fonts folder.
Just because it can properly translate the installed font names means nothing.
APub has problems when there are duplicate fonts in the Windows fonts folder.
Other applications may, and do, also have problems.

There is nothing wrong with how the Arial fonts are constructed.
Arial and Arial Black come with the Windows operating system.
Arial Narrow comes with MS Office 2010, 2013, 2016, etc.
If someone mixed and matched some downloaded Mac and PC versions, that would be a problem.
If Scribus is having a problem the original PC version fonts, the problem is Scribus.
But is could just be Scribus too is having an issue with duplicate fonts in the Windows Fonts folder.

The fact that all your Arial Narrow previews look the same indicates a problem.
You can fix it or ignore it.
Obviously that is up to you.
But the problem is not APub or the fonts.

First fix the font problems.
Then make some suggestions regarding translating the names, widths, weights, and styles, etc.

 

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, LibreTraining said:

Check your Windows fonts folder to make sure you do not have old/different versions of the fonts in there.
You should only see:
ARIALN.TTF
ARIALNB.TTF
ARIALNBI.TTF
ARIALNI.TTF

If you see variations of those with a number on the end of the file name (i.e. _0) they are duplicates

I have no duplicates !!!

There are nine ttf arial font files in the font folder, that normally appear in Windows (10), see my previous post.
Only Affinity has a problem with correct name interpretation for Narrow files ("N" in file name).

The truth is that these files are already quite old (14.7.2006 vs 19.3.2019), and compared to others it is an old version.

[Fritz_H]

@LibreTraining 

I will stop that here - too many misunderstandings...

There is no problem with Scribus, the opposite is true:
It shows 4x "Narrow" but extends the name with additional info (in brackets) which indicates: it recognizes that there is something strange/wrong about these Arial-Fonts.

No need to discuss this any further.. esp. since there is no Arial needed on my side..

kind regards
Fritz

[kenmcd]

19 hours ago, Pšenda said:

The truth is that these files are already quite old (14.7.2006 vs 19.3.2019), and compared to others it is an old version.

Arial Narrow does not come with Windows.
Users typically get Arial Narrow from MS Office.
The v2.37 you have was included with MS Office 2007 and 2010.

In APub my Arial Narrow font previews look correct - just like MikeW's image above.
It appears you have some corruption of the APub font cache and/or the Windows font cache.
This could be caused by duplicate fonts, OR some other issue.
First, make sure you do not have duplicate fonts in the Windows Fonts folder.
Then, clear your Windows font cache.

[kenmcd]

19 hours ago, Fritz_H said:

There is no problem with Scribus, the opposite is true:
It shows 4x "Narrow" but extends the name with additional info (in brackets) which indicates: it recognizes that there is something strange/wrong about these Arial-Fonts.

Just checked using Scribus v1.56-svn - all Arial fonts are listed correctly, including Arial Narrow.
I see nothing "strange/wrong" at all.
My guess is you also have a fonts cache issue.

 

[Fritz_H]

2 hours ago, LibreTraining said:

Just checked using Scribus v1.56-svn - all Arial fonts are listed correctly, including Arial Narrow.
(...)
My guess is you also have a fonts cache issue.

I used Scribus 1.48 portable (= release branch) for testing.

No Font-Cache-Issue since I deleted Font-Cache-Files.
Perhaps it´s related to the OS (Windows 8.1); don´t know what Psenda ist using, the OP also uses Windows 8.x...

again: Who cares?  Arial is boring and the Affinity-Applications still have so many bugs.. one bug more or less does not count...
esp. since you can use the fonts, just the name is not displayed correctly. ( @AndreasDiehm  )
 

kind regards
Fritz

[Pšenda]

4 hours ago, LibreTraining said:

First, make sure you do not have duplicate fonts in the Windows Fonts folder.

What do you not understand about my previous post?

 

4 hours ago, LibreTraining said:

Then, clear your Windows font cache.

I've tried it before, but of course no effect.

[Pšenda]

4 hours ago, LibreTraining said:

In APub my Arial Narrow font previews look correct - just like MikeW's image above.

Are you and Mike using a foreign language version of OS?