Affinity Publisher: texte spacing

[Pyanepsion]

Hello,

Is it possible to adjust precisely the text width gap according to the typographical standard?

Thanks for your explanations.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Pyanepsion said:

Is it possible to adjust precisely the text width gap according to the typographical standard?

Yes, using the Tracking specification in the Character Panel or Character Text Style.

[Pyanepsion]

Thank.😀

Is it possible to adjust precisely the text weight according to the typographical standard?

[walt.farrell]

27 minutes ago, Pyanepsion said:

Is it possible to adjust precisely the text weight according to the typographical standard?

You're welcome.

I'm not sure what you mean by text weight, nor what the typographical standard would be for text weight. Sorry.

I'm only familiar with text weight referring to light, regular, bold, black, etc. and those aren't text aspects that one adjusts except by choosing a different variant of the font.

[Pyanepsion]

I'm talking about light, regular, bold, black, etc. and these are indeed variants of fonts. By algorithm, we can weigh down or lighten a grease on the fonts. In practice, this basically works on variable fonts.

https://developer.mozilla.org/fr/docs/Web/CSS/font-weight#Polices_variables (French version)

[walt.farrell]

28 minutes ago, Pyanepsion said:

By algorithm, we can weigh down or lighten a grease on the fonts. In practice, this basically works on variable fonts.

Font-weight selection in Publisher is manual. Also, variable fonts are not currently supported at all by the Affinity applications.

[Pyanepsion]

Quote

Font-weight selection in Publisher is manual.

I couldn't figure out how to get an accurate manual selection of font weights in Publisher to do:

• Thin= 100
• Extra-Light (Ultra-light) = 200
• Light = 300
• Roman (Normal, Regular, Current) = 400
• Medium = 500
• Semi-Bold (Demi-Bold) = 600
• Bold= 700
• Extra-Bold (Ultra-Bold) = 800
• Black (Heavy) = 900
• Extra-black (Ultra-Black) = 950

Quote

variable fonts are not currently supported at all by the Affinity applications

(I noticed a few days ago that Publishers does not support variable fonts. This is a serious shortcoming, and I imagine  Serif will correct this quickly, as many other software packages now manage them, especially since variable fonts are often not very expensive compared to the full sets of other fonts. I think this will be a strong signal for large companies who are still hesitant about the Affinity suite.).

 

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, Pyanepsion said:

I couldn't figure out how to get an accurate manual selection of font weights in Publisher to do:

• Thin= 100
• Extra-Light (Ultra-light) = 200
• Light = 300
• Roman (Normal, Regular, Current) = 400
• Medium = 500
• Semi-Bold (Demi-Bold) = 600
• Bold= 700
• Extra-Bold (Ultra-Bold) = 800
• Black (Heavy) = 900
• Extra-black (Ultra-Black) = 950

Font weight for Affinity is entirely defined by the fonts you have installed. You will need to find, install, and use a font with those characteristics.

[R C-R]

10 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Font weight for Affinity is entirely defined by the fonts you have installed. You will need to find, install, and use a font with those characteristics.

Additionally, I am not sure what the numbers are supposed to represent for the proposed "manual" selection of font weights. Perhaps if @Pyanepsion explained more about that it might make clearer what is wanted?

[Pyanepsion]

10 hours ago, R C-R said:

Perhaps if Pyanepsion explained more about that it might make clearer what is wanted?

I'm working on a typography guide. I need to be able to manage the font weight (as on the Firefox Developer page above, working well under Firefox, less well under other Internet browsers) to obtain a visual aspect corresponding to the typographic standards of the PANOSE standard at rank 3.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Pyanepsion said:

I need to be able to manage the font weight (as on the Firefox Developer page above, working well under Firefox, less well under other Internet browsers) to obtain a visual aspect corresponding to the typographic standards of the PANOSE standard at rank 3.

In that case, I believe that either:

1. You need to develop your guide as a web page using Firefox, not as a Publisher document; or
2. If you use Publisher, you need to obtain and use a font family (collection) that implements the weights you need, and is supported by Publisher. (So, for example, not a variable font.)

[thomaso]

On 6/9/2020 at 8:46 AM, Pyanepsion said:

This is a serious shortcoming, and I imagine  Serif will correct this quickly, as many other software packages now manage them,

Do I assume right this way of defining font weight is web-based and needs CSS to work? Or did you get it in any print-related software? Note that all Affinity apps currently are rather for print than web, even though they offer document presets for screen based devices and, of cause, do export file formats for screen view.

[Pyanepsion]

 

25 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

In that case, I believe that either:

1. You need to develop your guide as a web page using Firefox, not as a Publisher document; or
2. If you use Publisher, you need to obtain and use a font family (collection) that implements the weights you need, and is supported by Publisher. (So, for example, not a variable font.)

Yes and no. I did indeed think of the first solution first, but this is a printed book project. So I looked at the second option. This is expensive (480 € for Helvetica for example). I then looked towards Monserrat (free). It appears that this second solution uses in all cases fonts that do not correspond to the theme of the guide. I am currently studying a third solution: creating specific fonts for each of the 10 standard weight required using specialized software, using a font that allows modification. I'm thinking of the Gill Sans Nova melt.

14 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Do I assume right this way of defining font weight is web-based and needs CSS to work?

No. This technique was once used for printing, but did not always give a good result with all fonts. Variable fonts (a technology created in 2016) revolutionize the way we work on font weights using the process described on the aforementioned link.

[thomaso]

> many other software packages now manage them,
> This technique was once used for printing,

Can you please post a link to such a software which is print-related? I'd like to experience it live, in particular the UI for defining the weights.

[Pyanepsion]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Can you please post a link to such a software which is print-related

😐Variable Fonts. Randomly: Indesign, Word, OpenOffice, etc. Weight font: PageStream, etc.

[thomaso]

Just FYI: a recent article about Variable Fonts, some technical & historical info:

English (translation):
https://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=de&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=de&tl=en&u=https://www.typografie.info/3/artikel.htm/wissen/was-sind-variable-fonts-r455/

German:
https://www.typografie.info/3/artikel.htm/wissen/was-sind-variable-fonts-r455/

It appears to make benefit of their features it requires extra UI, in particular additional sliders for width/weight.