Our custom typeface wont export, only the english letters.

[Ishstudio]

Hi, 

We have made a custom typeface and made a 30 page long pdf file. 

Publisher will export the document correctly with the english alphabet, but wont export the letters "Æ Ø Å" in our custom typeface. 
So when we export the whole document, all the words with "Æ Ø Å" is gone. 

Someone know how to fix it? 
 

[Joachim_L]

Welcome to the Affinity forums @Ishstudio!

Uncheck Subset Fonts in the export dialogue. This option is hiding behind the More button and try again.

[Ishstudio]

@Joachim_L 

Tried it, but the same problem occurred again.. 

[Joachim_L]

1 minute ago, Ishstudio said:

Tried it, but the same problem occurred again.

Perhaps a fault with the custom typeface? Does the font work with other applications? What type of font is it? Perhaps our font expert here on the forums @LibreTraining would like to join this discussion?

[Ishstudio]

Just now, Joachim_L said:

Perhaps a fault with the custom typeface? Does the font work with other applications? What type of font is it? Perhaps our font expert here on the forums @LibreTraining would like to join this discussion?

Its called TRAP, and the last letters ÆØÅ is custom made from the creator of the font. 

We use it for our website and many other apps, no problem with the font. Only Publisher. 

[thomaso]

@Joachim_L, this subset option is part of the embed fonts option to make sure text is displayed with the initial font on computers which don't have the font installed – otherwise an existing font will be used to display the text. But here text seems to be missing after export, even entire words if they include specific characters.  But I agree, it quite likely an issue in the font file.

14 minutes ago, Ishstudio said:

all the words with "Æ Ø Å" is gone. 

• Is APub able to convert this text to curves? Either before or during export (two different workflows).

• Can you select in the PDF those areas of the missing text with a text tool? Either with in an according PDF viewer app or after opening the PDF in APub. If yes, can you copy paste it to a plain text document to see any characters?

• Can you upload a sample PDF with some text, including affected and not affected words?

[Ishstudio]

4 minutes ago, thomaso said:

@Joachim_L, this subset option is part of the embed fonts option to make sure text is displayed with the initial font on computers which don't have the font installed – otherwise an existing font will be used to display the text. But here text seems to be missing after export, even entire words if they include specific characters.  But I agree, it quite likely an issue in the font file.

• Is APub able to convert this text to curves? Either before or during export (two different workflows).

• Can you select in the PDF those areas of the missing text with a text tool? Either with in an according PDF viewer app or after opening the PDF in APub. If yes, can you copy paste it to a plain text document to see any characters?

• Can you upload a sample PDF with some text, including affected and not affected words?

I made a sample for you with the APub file, Jpeg and PDF export. 

 

Font_Trap_Example.pdf Font_Trap_Example.afpub

[thomaso]

17 minutes ago, Ishstudio said:

I made a sample for you with the APub file, Jpeg and PDF export. 

The .afpub file isn't helpful without having the font file because it opens with a substitute font of course.

The PDF shows gaps within words, so not the words are missing but certain characters only. That would indicate that APub has problems to convert these specific characters to curves. Which would indicate there is an issue with the font file itself and its custom added characters.

Is the JPG a screenshot – or an export result from APub? If it is an export, can you also export the formats PNG (with transparency) and SVG without missing characters?

[Ishstudio]

11 minutes ago, thomaso said:

The .afpub file isn't helpful without having the font file because it opens with a substitute font of course.

The PDF shows gaps within words, so not the words are missing but certain characters only. That would indicate that APub has problems to convert these specific characters to curves. Which would indicate there is an issue with the font file itself and its custom added characters.

Is the JPG a screenshot – or an export result from APub? If it is an export, can you also export the formats PNG (with transparency) and SVG without missing characters?

The jpeg is an export from APub.  I can export to PNG and SVG without missing characters. 

[Joachim_L]

I understand why you had the font customised, as the original Æ Ø Å do not fit to the rest of the font and Affinity even do not show them in the Glyph panel.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/105910441/trap-typeface-100-Free-font/moodboard?moduleId=607786997

[Ishstudio]

Just now, Joachim_L said:

I understand why you had the font customised, as the original Æ Ø Å do not fit to the rest of the font and Affinity even do not show them in the Glyph panel.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/105910441/trap-typeface-100-Free-font/moodboard?moduleId=607786997

Yes, the creator made it for us. and we can use it everywhere else without problems, except the export for pdf in publisher 😓

 

[thomaso]

21 minutes ago, Ishstudio said:

I can export to PNG and SVG without missing characters. 

Can you upload the SVG, too?

How about export as EPS, does it work without missing characters?

[Ishstudio]

Just now, thomaso said:

Can you upload the SVG, too?

How about export as EPS, does it work without missing characters?

Yes to all. 
 

Font_Trap_Example_eps.eps Font_Trap_Example_svg.svg

[Dan C]

Hi @Ishstudio,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble here!

We're going to require a copy of this font file to investigate this further here, I appreciate for licensing reasons you likely cannot provide the font in this thread, so please find an upload link below where you can privately send the font to the Affinity team.

Once we've finished testing this issue, the font will be deleted and nothing with licencing will be kept -

https://www.dropbox.com/request/nMmUDv1RCkL3p5PmO5U8

Please respond here to let us know once the font has been uploaded, many thanks in advance!

[lacerto]

(...)

[Alfred]

On 6/23/2021 at 1:07 PM, thomaso said:

this subset option is part of the embed fonts option to make sure text is displayed with the initial font on computers which don't have the font installed

The ‘Embed fonts’ option is there to make sure the original font is used on computers which don’t have it installed. The ‘Subset fonts’ option is there to keep the file size to a minimum by only including a subset of the glyphs in the font: this can cause problems if, for example, the text includes a ligature for ‘ffi’ in words such as ‘difficult’ (because the subset will only include the ‘f’ and ‘i’ glyphs, not the separate glyph for the ‘ffi’ sequence).

[thomaso]

4 minutes ago, Alfred said:

only including a subset of the glyphs in the font: this can cause problems if, for example, the text includes a ligature for ‘ffi’ in words such as ‘difficult’ (because the subset will only include the ‘f’ and ‘i’ glyphs, not the separate glyph for the ‘ffi’ sequence).

Do you know how this subset is defined? Your excluding sample of ligatures makes me wonder if the "subset" is for all PDFs the same – independent from their document's content (chars + fonts)?

Whereas I expect "subset" simply limits character / glyph embedding to those which are actually used in the document = required to display all its content as designed. – No?

[Alfred]

12 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Whereas I expect "subset" simply limits character / glyph embedding to those which are actually used in the document = required to display all its content as designed. – No?

I suspect that we need to distinguish between the content of a document and the content of the exported PDF. If you typed “contest” and the app immediately replaced the characters “s” and “t” with the “st” ligature, you wouldn’t be able to select the “s” on its own to replace it with “n” or “x”.

[thomaso]

14 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I suspect that we need to distinguish between the content of a document and the content of the exported PDF.

Sure? That's what I wonder: what may be and what can't become part of a subset.
Are your ligatures just samples, or do you know they never are in a subset (and therefore don't appear visually as ligature in the PDF)?

[Alfred]

5 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Are your ligatures just samples, or do you know they never are in a subset (and therefore don't appear visually as ligature in the PDF)?

I know that there have been numerous forum threads describing problems with strange characters or gaps in imported PDF files, where such problems have been resolved by switching off the subsetting feature.

[thomaso]

20 minutes ago, Alfred said:

there have been numerous forum threads describing problems with strange characters or gaps in imported PDF files, where such problems have been resolved by switching off the subsetting feature.

Ah thanks, I haven't understood it this way before. Sorry, @Joachim_L!

But wouldn't that mean that in addition to a possible issue with a font file, there is also an issue (bug?) with the creation of the subset during export?
Or can a font file exclude certain used glyphs from being embedded (in purpose or by mistake) – while all its other glyphs get successfully embedded?

 

 

[lacerto]

(...)

[William Overington]

Would it help to try copying the original Affinity file, in the copy changing the font to Arial and producing a PDF?

That test might show whether the issue is specific to the custom font or to Arial as well.

William

 

[thomaso]

Thanks Lagarto, so it sounds the cause of these glyph issues is in details still ambiguous, and they may be caused by a combination of several involved parts and also may have differing causes with different affected font files. Right?

1 hour ago, Lagarto said:

As there are issues only with PDF, it may well be that the problem is ultimately related to PDFlib, so the problem is not likely to be fixed unless the library gets fixed.

In case of PDFLib as culprit: It seems to be worth a trial for the OP @Ishstudio to print the PDF (instead of export) to surround the PDFLib used by Affinity on PDF export. – Or does the macOS lib correspond to the PDFLib in Affinity, especially in font interpreting?

Export:

Print as PDF:

 

[William Overington]

If using Windows there is a Microsoft print to pdf option so it might be worth trying that as perhaps it is a different pdf producing system.

William