Font Styles Only Showing 'Regular' in Affinity Photo

[Fftara]

I installed Affinity Photo on my new desktop and the font family Bahnschrift seems to not display it's different styles. When I open other programs like Clip Studio Paint, the different font styles such as bold and semi-bold are available. In Affinity Photo, it shows that I have multiple styles available but they all are "Regular." I try choosing different styles and they all are the same regular font.

 

I tried installing the font after downloading it online but it seemed to already be in Windows Fonts. It showed that there were 30 font styles available in Affinity Photo which seemed odd. I tried uninstalling the font Windows Font Settings which reduced the font styles available in Affinity Photo to 15. These styles still show as regular font styles. I also attempted deleting the font from control panel fonts and importing the fonts again. I'm really confused as Affinity Photo seems to be the only program that can't seem to read the different font styles, unlike Clip Studio or Word. Is there anything I might be missing that could solve this issue?

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forus.

Bahnschrift is a "variable" font, and Affinity does not support fonts that use that technology.

[V. Novikov]

The problem remains. How to make it work finally?

[Alfred]

49 minutes ago, V. Novikov said:

The problem remains. How to make it work finally?

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @V. Novikov.

The problem will remain until Serif releases a new version (a free update or a paid-for upgrade) that includes support for variable fonts.

[AmeliaM]

Just wanted to add my support for this topic. I've been trying out the free trial for Designer and Publisher, and was hoping to finally move away from Adobe, but just discovered this issue with variable fonts.

Everything in the industry right now is pointing towards variable fonts becoming the norm, not the exception - Google Fonts, for instance, no longer offers individual weights if a variable version is available. So if you wanted to download, say, Playfair Display SemiBold, won't get Playfair Display SemiBold. You'll ONLY get the variable version, which Affinity will only be able to display as Regular. Because Affinity doesn't support variables, I would be forced to hunt down the individual styles on different, more questionable font sites. And this isn't just an issue when downloading new fonts; it also poses problems with file compatibility, such as when I need to work with other designers' files that contain variables. I'd also be limiting my pool of resources in the future as more and more foundries pivot to variable.

Variable fonts are no longer emerging technology - they're becoming industry standard. I would love to make a full switch to Affinity, but this gap would have me stuck relying on workarounds, doing extra legwork to fix compatibility issues, and clinging to old technology while new ones pass me by. I don't think any designer should have to do that for variable fonts in 2022.

Edited February 14, 2022 by AmeliaM
grammar

[walt.farrell]

25 minutes ago, AmeliaM said:

So if you wanted to download, say, Playfair Display SemiBold, won't get Playfair Display SemiBold. You'll ONLY get the variable version,

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Actually, on that Google Fonts page, you should see (at least on a computer browser) a "Download Family" link (see screenshot below). And in the .zip file that will download, there's a folder named static that will have all the versions of the static font. Those are the ones you need to install for use with the Affinity applications.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Actually, on that Google Fonts page, you should see (at least on a computer browser) a "Download Family" link (see screenshot below). And in the .zip file that will download, there's a folder named static that will have all the versions of the static font.

I do not think there is any way to get just the variable font version from Google Fonts, so by using the "Download Family" button & unzipping the download, I would think it would be hard to miss the "static" folder ... or for that matter the "README" file that among other things explains what that folder includes & why.

[kenmcd]

Recently Google Fonts changed the font downloads to always download the full font package no matter what the user has selected - even one font. So users always get all fonts available now. That includes the statics and the variables.

It used to be that users could select one font (including the variable font(s) if any) and the ZIP would only have the fonts selected. For users who always wanted all the fonts (includes me) it was a PITA to have to select everything one-by-one to get all the fonts.

This is better. 

[kenmcd]

23 hours ago, V. Novikov said:

The problem remains. How to make it work finally?

Do you have Office 365? You can coax it into giving you the static versions of Bahnschrift.

Do you have Windows 11? Along with Office 365 you can get Grandview (statics) - which is basically Bahnschrift optimized for long-form text.

[dim p]

I am still experiencing this issue on some fonts

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, dim p said:

I am still experiencing this issue on some fonts

Then it is very likely (almost certain) that you still have the Variable version of those fonts installed. You need to remove that version, and download/install the Static version instead.