Why can I not see text on affinity designer desktop

[Qart]

 

I was using the text tool all morning on affinity designer desktop successfully. Then for no reason that I can figure out, I can no longer see the text when I use the tool. My background is white. The text is black.

With the text tool still on my Mouse, I drag it over the layer and when doing so I can see the letter (Text) but when I release the mouse; the text disappears. I’ve tried everything I can think of to no avail. I would be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction. Yes, you have guessed right, I’m still a greenhorn on affinity designer :-).

[Old Bruce]

First thing I have to ask is what colour is set for the text?

Try this, select the move tool and then select everything on the page and change the fill colour. If there is text selected it should change colour.

[Dan C]

Sorry to hear you're having trouble Qart!

If the above method does not display any text, could you please provide a screen recording showing this issue in Affinity? Many thanks in advance!

[Qart]

Dan C - old Bruce, Thank you very much for such a quick reply. I discovered what I was doing wrong. It was so stupid, I'm not going to tell you 🙂. Thanks again for your help.

[Old Bruce]

24 minutes ago, Qart said:

 I discovered what I was doing wrong. It was so stupid, I'm not going to tell you

I bet I did it first and more often. [smiley face emoticon]

[John Harland]

Shame you did not share your answer, post is useless ! I have the same problem, only being using for a while and have no idea how to fix, thanks a bunch !

[Hangman]

Hi @John Harland,

Did you try the suggestion @Old Bruce made in the second post of this thread?

If that doesn't work then either a screen recording or a sample Affinity file would help us to help you otherwise we're working slightly in the dark trying to guess what may be going on...

[John Harland]

Thanks Hangman

I am trying to add text to the profile, you can see that it is spelt wrong !

John

Coaster-Model 1.afdesign

[Hangman]

Hi @John Harland,

See how you get on with the attached file...

There is something really really odd going on with your file and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it is so will update this post if I figure it out...

Coaster-Model 1 Revised.afdesign

[John Harland]

Appreciate that Hangman

I have not had the licence long, it also crashed a few times yesterday !

 

[GarryP]

I’ve tried everything that I can think of – Text sizes, Font choices, Blend Options, various Opacities, Character Scaling, Baselines, View Modes, etc. etc. - but can’t seem to be able to get the text to show.

I can add a new Curve Path Text layer in that document, and that looks fine, but I notice that the application is working really slowly while I have the example document open.

I think the document might have become ‘corrupted’ somehow.

[John Harland]

Thanks GarryP

Sounds like I need to start from scratch again 😠

[Hangman]

This is how your characters appear... it looks as though at some point you've done something to them or the drawing itself which has affected the text but I'm trying to figure out what exactly...

Your file is very unwieldy as well struggling to redraw properly, hopefully you can just continue with the revised version though...

[John Harland]

Wow, very strange, thanks Hangman

[GarryP]

3 minutes ago, John Harland said:

Sounds like I need to start from scratch again

Unfortunately it looks like that might be a possibility in this case.

Every now and again – thankfully not very often –  we see a document that has just ‘gone screwy’ for some reason or other.

Sometimes the developers are able to fix it but the process to do so can often take longer than it would take to reproduce the document.

Hopefully Hangman’s experimentation will reveal something ‘concrete’ that someone can do something with.

[John Harland]

Many thanks

[Hangman]

My best guess is that at some point in the creation of the drawing the Contour tool has been applied either directly or inadvertently to the text...

[John Harland]

Thanks for your time

[GarryP]

26 minutes ago, John Harland said:

Many thanks

You’re welcome.

In most cases I would not recommend copying some layers from the ‘sick’ document to a new one, to try and save some time/effort, in case they ‘infect’ the new document somehow.

You could try exporting some of the vector-only layers to SVGs (in essence, trying to ‘disinfect’ them), then placing the SVGs, one-by-one, into the document and then copying/pasting the contents of the placed SVG into the document and deleting the placed SVG, but that could be a long process with no guarantee of eventual success.

[John Harland]

Noted, thanks

[Circulus]

34 minutes ago, Hangman said:

My best guess is that at some point in the creation of the drawing the Contour tool has been applied

And it does

[John Harland]

Thanks

[Hangman]

11 minutes ago, Return said:

And it does

I'd not spotted the radius setting in the context toolbar but yes, that confirms this is the issue, so a simple fix...