Fonts aren't correct

[Nordsted Design]

Today I was finishing a book cover. When I wrote the text in Times new roman, I saw, that the font needs correction. To me this is very important, because I use Times new roman om a lot of book covers. This means I can't use Affinity Designer.

Edited April 22, 2021 by Nordsted Design
Mispelling

[Joachim_L]

Welcome to the Affinity forums @Nordsted Design!

What do you mean the font needs correction? Do you mean the ligature between f and l? You can turn this off in the Character panel. What application are you using? Affinity Publisher or Affinity Designer? You posted this in the Affinity Publisher forum.

[Nordsted Design]

Thanks 🙂

I have tried to do that, but it is like they a "melted" together. It is Affinity Publisher. But it is almost the same in Designer, but here I can get a little more space, but they are still melted together. But my problem are Affinity Publisher.

[walt.farrell]

If you give us a sample .afpub file that demonstrates the issue, it will be easier to help you.

[Komatös]

I see the problem; the publisher does not use the kerning information of the font. My font manager shows the correct kerning of the font.

[Komatös]

Ok, found a solution! Mark the letters f and l, and go to characters --> typography and click on the  first symbol (standard ligatures).

[kalee]

After reading of this problem, I too thought there must be a problem with Affinity, as I appeared to be able to replicate the issue..

HOWEVER, the problem would seem to be a case of not using the help file!
You need to use kerning for the f and l characters, which means that you need to click between the two characters - and can then easily adjust the spacing.
 

[Komatös]

8 minutes ago, kalee said:

...

You need to use kerning for the f and l characters, which means that you need to click between the two characters - and can then easily adjust the spacing.
 

Nope, you only must deal with the ligatures. Kerning produces a different result.

[kalee]

There is always more than one way to skin a cat.
This works for me, and your ligature comment did not work for me.
When time is tight, you do what works. Well, I do!

[kenmcd]

3 hours ago, Nordsted Design said:

I have tried to do that, but it is like they a "melted" together. It is Affinity Publisher. But it is almost the same in Designer, but here I can get a little more space, but they are still melted together. But my problem are Affinity Publisher.

This looks like a bug.
In Times New Roman the fl ligature is a Discretionary Ligature, not a Standard Ligature.
Per OpenType specs Discretionary Ligatures should be Off by default.
But this ligature somehow appears to be On by default as it is included along with the Standard Ligatures.
This is a bug.

Highlighting the fl characters and disabling standard ligatures worked for me.

[Alfred]

59 minutes ago, kalee said:

You need to use kerning for the f and l characters, which means that you need to click between the two characters - and can then easily adjust the spacing.

Your original post includes a screenshot that clearly shows a ligature, with the crossbar of the ‘f’ extending all the way to align with the right-hand edge of the ball terminal at the top. Since a ligature is a single glyph, it is impossible to click between two component characters.

40 minutes ago, kalee said:

There is always more than one way to skin a cat.
This works for me, and your ligature comment did not work for me.
When time is tight, you do what works. Well, I do!

If you were able to kern between the ‘f’ and the ‘l’ you must have disabled the ligature feature to separate them.

[kalee]

Yes Alfred. Just checked, that is correct, thank you.

[Nordsted Design]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

Your original post includes a screenshot that clearly shows a ligature, with the crossbar of the ‘f’ extending all the way to align with the right-hand edge of the ball terminal at the top. Since a ligature is a single glyph, it is impossible to click between two component characters.

If you were able to kern between the ‘f’ and the ‘l’ you must have disabled the ligature feature to separate them.

Now you have lost my friends. Can it be done and if so, do I need to do it for every single time. If so, it must be a bug.

 

Thanks for answering.

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, Nordsted Design said:

Can it be done and if so, do I need to do it for every single time. If so, it must be a bug.

It does seem to be a bug:

1 hour ago, LibreTraining said:

Per OpenType specs Discretionary Ligatures should be Off by default.
But this ligature somehow appears to be On by default as it is included along with the Standard Ligatures.
This is a bug.

 

[kenmcd]

17 minutes ago, Nordsted Design said:

Can it be done and if so, do I need to do it for every single time.

Since Times New Roman does not have any Standard Ligatures for Latin scripts you can simply turn them Off.
In your text style turn-Off the standard ligatures and then that way it (fl) will always be two characters.

[Nordsted Design]

33 minutes ago, LibreTraining said:

Since Times New Roman does not have any Standard Ligatures for Latin scripts you can simply turn them Off.
In your text style turn-Off the standard ligatures and then that way it (fl) will always be two characters.

Thank you for helping. I have tried that as well. Nothing changes at all - If this is what you mean.

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, Nordsted Design said:

Nothing changes at all - If this is what you mean.

Something did change. Look at the crossbar on the "f", which is now shorter. That indicates that the ligature is no longer being used.

[kenmcd]

19 hours ago, Nordsted Design said:

Thank you for helping. I have tried that as well. Nothing changes at all - If this is what you mean.

Times New Roman (TNR) does a lot of "kerning" using negative side bearings.
Keep in mind that TNR was created to use with Microsoft Word which for a long time had no kerning feature at all.
So they in effect did a lot of kerning in the spacing, width, and side-bearings of the characters.
All of which can look pretty weird in high-end graphics applications.

The lowercase f has -288 negative side-bearing on the right side.
This is so a lowercase a or e or o will appear to kern under the f.
But with the lowercase l that overhang bumps into it.

 

In most fonts this adjusting of the letter spacing would be done with some negative kerning, not negative side-bearings.
So using TNR in high-end graphics apps can come with some unexpected spacing and alignment issues.
Same thing happens with the uppercase W for example - it also has a big negative side-bearing to "kern" it with the lowercase.
Put either the W or the f at the end of a justified line and they appear to hang outside the margin.
Because of the negative side-bearing.

Times New Roman MT Pro did make some changes.
The lowercase f negative side-bearing is not as large, and it does have some positive kerning on the fl spacing.

Which does look a bit better.
Some fonts have an alternative narrower f for just this situation.

If you want to use Times New Roman for this kind of project, display text, expect to do a lot of manual kerning.
It was designed to look good for body text in a word processor which had no kerning.

 

 

[Nordsted Design]

9 hours ago, LibreTraining said:

Times New Roman (TNR) does a lot of "kerning" using negative side bearings.
Keep in mind that TNR was created to use with Microsoft Word which for a long time had no kerning feature at all.
So they in effect did a lot of kerning in the spacing, width, and side-bearings of the characters.
All of which can look pretty weird in high-end graphics applications.

The lowercase f has -288 negative side-bearing on the right side.
This is so a lowercase a or e or o will appear to kern under the f.
But with the lowercase l that overhang bumps into it.

 

In most fonts this adjusting of the letter spacing would be done with some negative kerning, not negative side-bearings.
So using TNR in high-end graphics apps can come with some unexpected spacing and alignment issues.
Same thing happens with the uppercase W for example - it also has a big negative side-bearing to "kern" it with the lowercase.
Put either the W or the f at the end of a justified line and they appear to hang outside the margin.
Because of the negative side-bearing.

Times New Roman Pro did make some changes.
The lowercase f negative side-bearing is not as large, and it does have some positive kerning on the fl spacing.

Which does look a bit better.
Some fonts have an alternative narrower f for just this situation.

If you want to use Times New Roman for this kind of project, display text, expect to do a lot of manual kerning.
It was designed to look good for body text in a word processor which had no kerning.

 

 

Thank you so much for you explanation. I am used to InDesign, but I actually haven't noticed the problem there, but InDesign may have the same problem. For short text it is ok, but for long text i'll use another font.

[kenmcd]

8 hours ago, Nordsted Design said:

I am used to InDesign, but I actually haven't noticed the problem there, but InDesign may have the same problem.

If optical kerning was turned-on in InDesign that would help mask the Times New Roman weirdness.

Optical Kerning would be a nice feature to have in Affinity apps (hint, hint).

 

[Nordsted Design]

I surely agree 🙂

[HANDJOJO]

On 4/22/2021 at 5:36 PM, Nordsted Design said:

Today I was finishing a book cover. When I wrote the text in Times new roman, I saw, that the font needs correction. To me this is very important, because I use Times new roman om a lot of book covers. This means I can't use Affinity Designer.

You can adjust The Tracking in Character menu to for i.e 90% as per screen shot below, however it could be for "O" "W" expand too, or you can separately create Artistic Text tool.

 

[HANDJOJO]

@Norsted Design, if you use the Times New Roman, this typically the font like as per your first inform, whether you use Affinity or Microsoft Word or other application.😉

 

[Nordsted Design]

6 minutes ago, HANDJOJO said:

You can adjust The Tracking in Character menu to for i.e 90% as per screen shot below, however it could be for "O" "W" expand too, or you can separately create Artistic Text tool.

 

Thanks Hand jojo,

 

You are correct, but it also depends on the settings in the "typography" as another have pointed out. I actually tried your hint, but it didn't work before I made some changes in the typography settings. But now it works, so thank again, I do appreciate.

[HANDJOJO]

1 hour ago, Nordsted Design said:

Thanks Hand jojo,

 

You are correct, but it also depends on the settings in the "typography" as another have pointed out. I actually tried your hint, but it didn't work before I made some changes in the typography settings. But now it works, so thank again, I do appreciate.

Good news 👍