HELP! Just upgraded to Big Sur and having font issues!

[nwhit]

Just upgraded to a new iMac with Big Sur (came from Catalina) and have now opened an existing client APub doc (v1.9.3). I noticed that one of the Text Styles looked wrong. The font used was Futura Light, but it now shows it with a "?" next to Futura (pic attached). Nowadays I simply use Font Book for font management and do have fonts from as far back as the 80s, so a bit of a mess, but it has worked just fine until Big Sur (with minor straightening out along the way over the years). 

In looking at Font Book, it is showing Futura now has duplicates, and reading further about Big Sur, I understand that they now install a bunch of fonts into the System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental folder that apparently aren't supposed to be disturbed. So I see that I now have those fonts, plus the Library/Fonts and my user ~/Library Fonts folders. 

In looking at the newer version of Font Book in Big Sur, I see the dialog for duplicate fonts (pic attached). However, I have not used this newer duplicate resolution, so am not 100% sure how to best proceed so as to not mess up my existing Affinity documents. I have to get the client's document finished quickly, so don't want to have to tie up my computer for days trying to sort out this new font issue with Big Sur. And I also found out that if I simply try to change the font within the document, whether by editing the Style or simply changing the font, it destroys the entire paragraph (pic attached) or even the entire text frame.

So, I'm hoping that someone who had had to resolve this issue with Big Sur and APub (and other Affinity apps) can guide me on the CORRECT way to get back to business.

1.  If I resolve duplicates in Font Book, do I just use the automatic button?
2. Can I simply deactivate the duplicate Futura font set located in the System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental folder and not mess up my existing files?
3. Once I correct for duplicates, what do I need to do within Affinity to get my fonts working again? I do see the Pref for Reset Fonts, but I didn't want to click that until I understand the implications of doing that. I don't want to destroy the typesetting in all my previous Affinity files! We do use Futura a lot, so would have a HUGE impact if I do it wrong! And speaking of Impact, I also see that the Impact font now also has duplicates! And it is also used heavily. 
4. Hoping someone can provide me a correct step-by-step to get me back to having the right fonts showing/available. Not worried about sorting out old or corrupt fonts since everything I've been using has worked for as far back as I can remember until I switched to Big Sur, so it appears it is just an issue of resolving duplicates and making sure Affinity documents retain their correct formatting. 

Thanks in advance! I've read some of the other threads and websites related to OS11 and fonts, but none had a clear resolution to the issue. Thus I thought I would ask the great, experienced Affinity users for guidance in order to get my client's work done ASAP. 

[nwhit]

I did just try to use Reset Fonts in APub prefs, then restarted APub. I modified the "faulty" text style, and tried to reapply that, but it messed up the entire paragraph, then the entire text frame. I then copied all text from the frame, pasted into Text Edit as plain text, then back in APub, created a new text frame, pasted the plain text into that, then applied the main para text style to the first few paragraphs and the edited character style to a sentence within. That worked, thus leading me to believe that the entire existing text frame is "contaminated" or something. That doesn't look good if all our existing docs will need all text reset once I resolve the duplicate fonts issues! 😵

[Callum]

Hi Nwhit,

If possible could you provide a copy of the file so I can look into this further? It looks like your paragraph leading or character spacing is being messed up when you apply a change. If you don't want to post it publicly let me know and I will provide a private link.

Thanks

C

[nwhit]

@Callum We're working on this over on the Publisher Bugs on MacOS. We've found that the issue is that since my update to OS11, my Affinity apps (1.9.3 and newer betas) are not clearing/renewing the font Collections cache upon loading. Thus, I'm getting multiple duplicates of several fonts including the key font of Futura. As you'll read, I replaced a very old set of Futura font families with a new pair (Futura and Futura Cond), but none of the Affinity apps will clear the old styles and also show numerous duplicates of several of them in the Collections groups of fonts. 

If you have any ideas on how to fix this issue, sure like to hear them! Very frustrating since I cannot do a lot of client work until I get this resolved since I use the main affected font (Futura) and another problem one (Impact) extensively for several clients. Thus every doc and artwork I open is messed up until I can go through and "fix" the fonts, styles, etc. But with the font menus in Affinity apps showing 2-3 times the right number of styles, pretty tough to be sure I select the right ones to replace and update the files! Very strange issue! 

 

[Old Bruce]

I know that Big Sur OS 11.x installs their own versions of Futura. I think this is the source of the problem, you may have to use the 'new' versions and either remove or just disable your original versions. And that will possibly cause problems with having to replace them in older documents. 

There are over five hundred fonts installed with Big Sur, and another four hundred as a supplemental option. I am curious as to how many of them cannot be turned off.

[nwhit]

Thanks Bruce. As you can read in the other thread in Publisher Bugs (with much more detail), we've tried that. The permanent/locked Futura installed by OS11 is a very limited one with only a couple actual styles. As you can read in the other thread, since cleaning out the "antique" Futura fonts I used to use for many, many years, then installing the two new good Futura font families (reg and cond), I now have all the various styles available. And when I load an Affinity app, when I first look at the All Fonts listing, it is correct, listing 17 Futuras, 10 Fut Cond and a single Impact. The 17 Futuras includes a couple duplicates from Big Sur in the All Fonts list, so easy to discern.

But in my font collections created in Font Book (newly edited, created, etc.), in Affinity apps (but not any other) those font collections show up to 41 styles of Futura, a bunch of Condensed, up to 4 styles for Impact, etc. I can use the Reset Fonts within Affinity and a whole bunch of other things as per the other thread, and it still shows wrong in Affinity apps. 

And worse, once I open a font "collection" in Affinity apps with the dups, when I go back to the All Fonts view, I now have even more styles!!! Amazing!! Never seen this since the fist Affinity apps, so don't know what's going on. Only started with my switch to the new iMac with Big Sur, coming from Catalina, so thinking it must be related. But I have gone down the path of looking at OS11's built in fonts and isolated that issue. And as I said, none of the other apps that show collections have this issue. Just Affinity apps. And as Jon has said on the other forum, Affinity apps are supposed to be flushing each launch, but they aren't flushing the collections listings. I had really hoped one of us old timers had seen this before and had a quick cure! 

[nwhit]

20 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

There are over five hundred fonts installed with Big Sur, and another four hundred as a supplemental option. I am curious as to how many of them cannot be turned off.

Forgot to answer your question. NONE of them can be turned off!!! They now put those fonts into the System/Library/Fonts directory and move your personally installed fonts into the Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts folders.

The workaround that I finally figured out is to use Font Book's font collections with only your own fonts/styles. In the collections, you can Disable the numerous OS11 installed fonts and styles. Helps clean up an otherwise huge font dropdown containing these new "permanent" fonts that a person might not ever use.