restricted use of bullets in MAC version

[Maiskäfer]

MAC user know the wide range of any kind of bullets to create and format listings.

In the current version there are only a few number of bullets, arrows and other symbols out of the symbol and bullets-list from MAC OS which are accepted by Affinity Designer.

Only when using the Dingbats types or whatever the windows like symbol set additional bullets can be used.

IT seems that Affinity Designer is a Windows-based application and not as announced a native MAC application.

It is a pity and should be resolved for a full access to use it as announced in the MAC-world without such windows based cripples and restrictions.......

Edited April 1, 2022 by Maiskäfer

[v_kyr]

Hello and welcome!

In case you might mean the Glyph-Browser here, that's always font selection dependent. Thus in turn it also depends on what fonts you already have installed on your MacOS system and then reuse in AD.

• Zapf Dingbats
• SF Symbols (MacOS)
• How to Access Special Characters in Your Mac Fonts
• ... etc.

[Dan C]

Hi @Maiskäfer,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

3 hours ago, Maiskäfer said:

IT seems that Affinity Designer is a Windows-based application and not as announced a native MAC application.

It is a pity and should be resolved for a full access to use it as announced in the MAC-world without such windows based cripples and restrictions.......

I can confirm that the Affinity apps were originally created to be macOS applications only, and support for Windows begun a few years after our initial release, so I'm certainly sorry to hear you feel this way but I can assure you it is not the case.

As v_kyr has mentioned above, the choice of which bullets/symbols can be used is font dependant, and Affinity allows you to control this in the Paragraph Studio -

 

[Maiskäfer]

Hi Dan,

thank you very much for your reply.

I know this 😎

My concern is of the use out of apples menu: 'edit'- emoji/symbols.

In this section i can normally chose some special arrows for my listings like:

➬ ➠ ➪ ➤ ➣ ➱ ➯ ➦ ➥  and so on.

But when trying to get some of these in Affinity Publisher following result:

see screenshot with marker attached.

 

This also arises using other symbols not in the chart of Affinity Publisher.

Why does Affinity Publisher not make use of the system sources from apple ??

All other application do so.......

It would be a great deal if Affinity Publisher would support apple's system symbols.

 

Thank you in advance

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Maiskäfer]

Hi v_kyr,

thank you very much for your reply and guidelines.

But this is not the 'problem'.

Problem is as already answered to Dan that Affinity will not accept all symbols of the MAC system.

It make no sense to me for a change of a font to come in the use of symbols like Zapf Dingbats. This is windows-style but certainly not MAC  😇.

MAC OS has a long as I can think about the ability to use the system styles to every MAC-application as normal.

So why not in Affinity ? This would make the workflow much easier and asa business as usual without having to use extra steps and diversions......

 

[Old Bruce]

You can copy and paste items from the Emoji and Symbols into the Bullets and Number field.

[R C-R]

27 minutes ago, Maiskäfer said:

In this section i can normally chose some special arrows for my listings like:

➬ ➠ ➪ ➤ ➣ ➱ ➯ ➦ ➥  and so on.

In the Mac Character Viewer window where you see these symbols in the Arrows section, if you select for example the NOTCHED LOWER RIGHT-SHADOWED WHITE RIGHTWARDS ARROW item, look at the bottom of the window in the Font Variation section. If you click on any of them, it will tell you which font includes that arrow. For me there are 5 fonts that include it, 2 in Menlo (regular & bold), 2 in Talapanna (regular & bold), & 1 in Zapf Dingbats.

For you it may be different because you have different fonts installed, but the point is only certain fonts have these arrow glyphs, so to use them in Affinity (or anywhere else) you have to use a font that includes them. Otherwise, you get the 'missing character' symbol like the one in your screenshot.

[v_kyr]

4 hours ago, Maiskäfer said:

It make no sense to me for a change of a font to come in the use of symbols like Zapf Dingbats. This is windows-style but certainly not MAC  😇.

That has nothing todo with Windows-style or Mac here, Zapf Dingbats is just a common font for all system platforms, and when installed & used you will get the characters that offers. Same way as for other symbol fonts here (like MacOS SF Symbols).

4 hours ago, Maiskäfer said:

MAC OS has a long as I can think about the ability to use the system styles to every MAC-application as normal.

So why not in Affinity ? This would make the workflow much easier and asa business as usual without having to use extra steps and diversions....

Not sure where your problem is here, when I try out in AD what you want to do via apples menu, aka 'edit'- emoji/symbols, then it works as far as I have the corresponding fonts installed under MacOS. - See for example the following (from MacOS Catalina) and also recognize from which fonts certain arrows are indicated to stem from and certain provided font-character alternatives ...

 

Das sollte also eigentlich funktionieren und ich denke mal dann wahrscheinlich äquivalent in APub (ich habe hier kein APub installiert daher obiges einmal via AD).

[Maiskäfer]

13 hours ago, v_kyr said:

That has nothing todo with Windows-style or Mac here, Zapf Dingbats is just a common font for all system platforms, and when installed & used you will get the characters that offers. Same way as for other symbol fonts here (like MacOS SF Symbols).

Not sure where your problem is here, when I try out in AD what you want to do via apples menu, aka 'edit'- emoji/symbols, then it works as far as I have the corresponding fonts installed under MacOS. - See for example the following (from MacOS Catalina) and also recognize from which fonts certain arrows are indicated to stem from and certain provided font-character alternatives ...

 

 

Das sollte also eigentlich funktionieren und ich denke mal dann wahrscheinlich äquivalent in APub (ich habe hier kein APub installiert daher obiges einmal via AD).

Eigentlich ist das Wort. Unter AP geht es nicht und in allen anderen Programmen ist es unter fast allen Fonts möglich diese Zeichen zu nutzen.

Nur AP ziert sich hier wie die berühmte Junfgrau  😎

[Maiskäfer]

In AP this does not work and the thing is:  all other applications can take full advantage of these special characters to use without regarding the font...

So it is my workflow to concentrate on the content and layout and not which font could I use when I need special character.

Sorry but this is not the way working on the MAC with great efficiency  😎

 

[Maiskäfer]

17 hours ago, R C-R said:

In the Mac Character Viewer window where you see these symbols in the Arrows section, if you select for example the NOTCHED LOWER RIGHT-SHADOWED WHITE RIGHTWARDS ARROW item, look at the bottom of the window in the Font Variation section. If you click on any of them, it will tell you which font includes that arrow. For me there are 5 fonts that include it, 2 in Menlo (regular & bold), 2 in Talapanna (regular & bold), & 1 in Zapf Dingbats.

For you it may be different because you have different fonts installed, but the point is only certain fonts have these arrow glyphs, so to use them in Affinity (or anywhere else) you have to use a font that includes them. Otherwise, you get the 'missing character' symbol like the one in your screenshot.

As I wrote before:

So it is my workflow to concentrate on the content and layout and not which font could I use when I need special character.

Sorry but this is not the way working on the MAC with great efficiency  😎

[Maiskäfer]

18 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

You can copy and paste items from the Emoji and Symbols into the Bullets and Number field.

Sorry but no. This only works when using i.e. font Dingbats.

But this effects the text-formatting after the bullet or symbol: the whole text after the symbol the is also in Dingbats which is not the result wanted.....

[walt.farrell]

8 minutes ago, Maiskäfer said:

But this effects the text-formatting after the bullet or symbol: the whole text after the symbol the is also in Dingbats which is not the result wanted.....

In the Bullets & Numbering settings in the Paragraph panel, you can (and must, I think) specify a character style for the Bullet to get around that. You would define a Character text style that specifies the font you want to use for the bullets, and then specify that font in the Bullets & Numbering settings. Then the font (and other settings like color, font weight, etc.) apply only to the Bullet, and not to the text that follows.

[Maiskäfer]

I know and had done this.

But when define a text style with a bullet or symbol out of Dingbat-font and the following text should be and was Helvetica i.e. then this is not the solution to work with because the font in the text body is set to Dingbats-font too when editing / overwrite the whole text staring after the bullet.

And this is not easy to handle when you don't have to pay attention to this in all the other applications..

I know AP is special for text design and layout. And therefore I can't understand the restrictions in AP .....

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Maiskäfer said:

But when define a text style with a bullet or symbol out of Dingbat-font and the following text should be and was Helvetica i.e. then this is not the solution to work with because the font in the text body is set to Dingbats-font too when editing / overwrite the whole text staring after the bullet.

If you set up the Character text style for the Bullet correctly that will not happen.

2 hours ago, Maiskäfer said:

And this is not easy to handle when you don't have to pay attention to this in all the other applications..

Some applications work differently from others.

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, Maiskäfer said:

But when define a text style with a bullet or symbol out of Dingbat-font and the following text should be and was Helvetica i.e. then this is not the solution to work with because the font in the text body is set to Dingbats-font too when editing / overwrite the whole text staring after the bullet.

It's probably in your case then more a matter of setting up correctly a bullet sign replacement as an paragraph style.

[Maiskäfer]

Danke v_kyr,

wie gesagt so was hatte ich auch schon in irgendeinem Layoutt gemacht und aufwendig den Teststil des Bullet (Pfeil) über Dingbat definiert und den restlichen Text mit Helvetica.

Wenn ich aber den Fülltext lösche und nach dem Buhlet / Pfeil wieder schreibe kommt dann der Text in Dingbat.

 

Einmal unabhängig davon, dass das mit sehr viel Gebastelt dann irgendwann vielleicht mal wieder für bestimmte Fonts funktioniert ist das unter Bezug auf eine MAC-app keine echte gute MAC-like Option.

Schliesslich verwende ich MAC bewusst, um einen effektiven Arbeitsablauf zu haben.

Die Erstellung solcher Textstyles ist da deutlich zu zeitaufwendig.

Wenn man z.B. bei Pages oder auch NisusWriter Pro und sogar bei Papyrus eine Listung erstellt, dann kann man die MAC-Symbole ohne Rücksicht auf die gerade verwendeten Schriftfont einsetzen.

Auch im Grafikprogramm EazyDraw kann ich das bei Texten einfach so machen..........

 

Das das natürlich dann doch irgendwie über die Textstyles unter Berücksichtigung der Textfonts, die das unterstützen geht ist klar, aber keine Option.

Es ist nicht sauber in die MAC Umgebung integriert, sonst ginge das wie bei den anderen apps auch.

Trotzdem vielen Dank für die Hinweise 😎

 

 

[v_kyr]

22 minutes ago, Maiskäfer said:

wie gesagt so was hatte ich auch schon in irgendeinem Layoutt gemacht und aufwendig den Teststil des Bullet (Pfeil) über Dingbat definiert und den restlichen Text mit Helvetica.

Wenn ich aber den Fülltext lösche und nach dem Buhlet / Pfeil wieder schreibe kommt dann der Text in Dingbat ...

Irgendwo gibt es da bei einem Rechts-Klick Kontextmenu (glaube ich zumindest irgendwo gesehen zu haben) eine auswählbare Option, um den jeweiligen Style dann halt nur auf das erste Bullet-Ersatzzeichen anzuwenden, also quasi unter Beibehaltung der restlichen bereits vorhandenen Zeilen-/Paragraph-Formatierung dann. - Aber ich bin beileibe hier auch kein APub-User, sprich ich benutze das nicht wirklich und kenne es somit auch nur rudimentär, da ich persönlich für technische Dokumentations-/Bucherstellungen und dergleichen eher FrameMaker gewohnt bin, welches in dieser Hinsicht ganz andere Möglichkeiten hat und bietet. Affinity Publisher ist davon (also von letzterem FrameMaker) und dessen Möglichkeiten, da denn doch leider noch etliche Lichtjahre entfernt.

Ansonsten mußte halt schauen ob die Online-Hilfe Dir da irgendweche sinnvollen Hinweise und Anleitungen für gibt (wahrscheinlich eher nicht).

• Aufzählung und Nummerierung (Online Hilfe APub)
• Paragraphs: Bullets, numbers ... (Video Tutorial APub)

[Maiskäfer]

Danke v_kyr.

 

irgendwo gibt es da bei einem Rechts-Klick Kontextmenu (glaube ich zumindest irgendwo gesehen zu haben) eine auswählbare Option, um den jeweiligen Style dann halt nur auf das erste Bullet-Ersatzzeichen anzuwenden, also quasi unter Beibehaltung der restlichen bereits vorhandenen Zeilen-/Paragraph-Formatierung dann

 

Das wäre noch ein Weg.

Ich bin aber auch noch nicht so tief drin mit dem AP

Ich habe den erst ein paar male benutzt. Ich hatte mir den mal genommen, da er einer der wenigen Programme ist, (die ich zumindest kenne) in denen ich die in einem Text eingebetteten Fotos oder Grafiken einfach mit Drag + Drop durch neue Bilder ersetzen kann.

Für mich ist das wichtig, da ich vielfach Dokumentationsberichte mit vielen Fotos mache.

Pages war da bislang das einzige Programm. Aber nachdem die von apple das mit den neuen Personen so kastriert hatten, wollte ich mal was anderes....

Was mir an AP aber sehr gut gefällt ist die im Vergleich sehr schnelle Druckausgabe.

 

FrameMaker kannte ich mehr oder weniger nur von einem Freund, der das früher schon in den 90ern benutzte 😎

 

Ich war bis 2008 auf der OS/2 Plattform mit allem was es gab. Leider haben die von IBM das so ziemlich sterben lassen.

Die Netzwerk-Geschichte unter OS/2 ist für mich bis heute die weitaus beste gewesen einmal abgesehen von der AS400-Welt und den noch höheren UNIX-Systemen......

 

Vielen Dank noch mal und ein schönes we

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, Maiskäfer said:

Sorry but no. This only works when using i.e. font Dingbats.

It will work with any font that includes the character you want to use as a bullet. It will not work for any font that does not have that character. Both @v_kyr& I have already explained how to use the Mac Character Viewer & the Font Variation list to see which fonts have that character.