Technic Font in Affinity Publisher/Designer

[LightCreator]

I'm trying to use Technic, a ttf font in Affinity Publisher. However when I type anything using the text tool, an exclamation point appears next to the font name, and the font is not displayed correctly. I tried opening word, and the font works there, I tried in Affinity Designer, and the font does not work there. 

I'm using affinity apps on an intel Mac. 

Do I need to reinstall the font?

Edited April 15, 2022 by LightCreator
updated computer information.

[Old Bruce]

34 minutes ago, LightCreator said:

Do I need to reinstall the font?

Or you may need to restart the Affinity applications. They cannot see any font that has been installed while they are open. Quit, start and the font should then be available.

[LightCreator]

They have been installed for awhile, it's not a fresh install. I may try uninstalling, restarting, reinstalling then trying to open the Affinity apps. 

[thomaso]

Since you are on mac you can first try to reset the font data base in Affinity Preferences > Misc > Fonts.
Also, it can help to boot your mac in "Safe mode" (shift key pressed until the sound), which checks for possible temporary confusion in the macOS font data base.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, LightCreator said:

However when I type anything using the text tool, an exclamation point appears next to the font name, and the font is not displayed correctly.

I think the exclamation mark indicates that the font is protected or restricted in some way.

1 hour ago, LightCreator said:

I tried opening word, and the font works there

Was it supplied with MS Word, perhaps as a cloud font?

[thomaso]

12 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I think the exclamation mark indicates that the font is protected or restricted in some way.

The exclamation mark does (also?) occur if the text contains glyphs which don't exist in the applied font.

[kenmcd]

2 hours ago, LightCreator said:

I'm trying to use Technic, a ttf font in Affinity Publisher. However when I type anything using the text tool, an exclamation point appears next to the font name, and the font is not displayed correctly. I tried opening word, and the font works there, I tried in Affinity Designer, and the font does not work there. 

I'm using affinity apps on an intel Mac. 

Do I need to reinstall the font?

Does the version string say this?
Linguist's Software Technic 2.0 generated with Altsys Fontographer 4.1 9/17/96

If that is the font, it is defective. It was not converted properly.
That font is actually a symbol font (not Unicode).
The code points are all up in the PUA range (which is why you see the ! - the code points of the characters you typed are not actually there).
It would take a lot of work to fix it.
Suggest you find another font.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Or you may need to restart the Affinity applications. They cannot see any font that has been installed while they are open. Quit, start and the font should then be available.

Are you sure that applies to the Mac versions? I have not tested it recently but if memory serves I have been able to install a Google font or two via Font Book with Affinity open & it immediately becomes available without having to restart anything.

EDIT: Just to confirm, I opened AD & added a frame text object to it. I then downloaded the Lobster from from here, opened it in Font Book & clicked the FB "Install" button. The font immediately became available in the open AD document & I had no problem replacing the Arial text in the frame with the Lobster regular version.

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Are you sure that applies to the Mac versions? I have not tested it recently but if memory serves I have been able to install a Google font or two via Font Book with Affinity open & it immediately becomes available without having to restart anything.

It’s my understanding that the Mac versions have worked that way for a very long time. On Windows I’ve always had to close and reopen the current document to let it “see” any newly installed fonts.

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, Alfred said:

It’s my understanding that the Mac versions have worked that way for a very long time.

As my just completed edit of my post says, it still works that way, at least for the font I tested with.

[kenmcd]

Newly installed fonts are available in APub on Windows 10 for me without restarting.
It may a minute for it to update its font cache, but adding or deleting fonts seems to happen fairly quickly.

[LightCreator]

4 hours ago, LibreTraining said:

Does the version string say this?
Linguist's Software Technic 2.0 generated with Altsys Fontographer 4.1 9/17/96

If that is the font, it is defective. It was not converted properly.
That font is actually a symbol font (not Unicode).
The code points are all up in the PUA range (which is why you see the ! - the code points of the characters you typed are not actually there).
It would take a lot of work to fix it.
Suggest you find another font.

It does. If I were to fix it, how would I start that process?

[Old Bruce]

55 minutes ago, R C-R said:

EDIT: Just to confirm, I opened AD & added a frame text object to it. I then downloaded the Lobster from from here, opened it in Font Book & clicked the FB "Install" button. The font immediately became available in the open AD document & I had no problem replacing the Arial text in the frame with the Lobster regular version.

My memory is most likely several versions old, or just plain wrong. Good to know that it is no longer the case.

[kenmcd]

1 hour ago, LightCreator said:

If I were to fix it, how would I start that process?

Open it in a font editor, convert it to Unicode (which uses the glyph names to assign code-points), delete the ~35 duplicate glyphs, delete some old characters no longer used, scan for mis-named glyphs and assign correct names (to current usage), change the font name so people know it is different, export it to TTF.
No kerning at all (as none in the original).
No OpenType features at all.
Missing some glyphs (like right curly quote, etc.).

Not a font I would have much use for, but you seem to want to use it.

TechnicAF-Regular.zip

Only testing I did was: it does install, it is listed in APub, and the text appears.
Have fun.

[LightCreator]

1 hour ago, LibreTraining said:

Open it in a font editor, convert it to Unicode (which uses the glyph names to assign code-points), delete the ~35 duplicate glyphs, delete some old characters no longer used, scan for mis-named glyphs and assign correct names (to current usage), change the font name so people know it is different, export it to TTF.
No kerning at all (as none in the original).
No OpenType features at all.
Missing some glyphs (like right curly quote, etc.).

Not a font I would have much use for, but you seem to want to use it.

TechnicAF-Regular.zip 20.37 kB · 2 downloads

Only testing I did was: it does install, it is listed in APub, and the text appears.
Have fun.

You rock for helping out! Thank you so much!

I use this font in Revit for Interior Design drawings and wanted to use it on presentation boards as an accent font. Thank you for your help!