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Hello forum folk

I've been using InDesign from the very start and am now making the change to Affinity Publisher.  I use FontBase to manage the thousands of fonts I have. 

Is there a way of using FontBase (or similar) to easily access my font folders in Publisher? It's  frustrating when I open an InDesign document in Publisher to find that the fonts are not available and cannot be easily replaced. I do not want to load every single font into my system fonts folder, which seems to be what Affinity suggest.

Thanks

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1 hour ago, mynnzer said:

Is there a way of using FontBase (or similar) to easily access my font folders in Publisher?

No. Affinity has access only to installed and activated fonts. You can't access the FontBase collections from Affinity.

But, at leaston a mac, Affinity can access the collections of the macOS font manager "Fontbook.app". They get listed in a pull-down menu in the Character Panel (not the Context Toolbar). Possibly there is a similar option for a system font manager in Windows, too. (I am not familiar with Windows)

1 hour ago, mynnzer said:

It's  frustrating when I open an InDesign document in Publisher to find that the fonts are not available and cannot be easily replaced. 

Affinity offers its "Font Manager" dialog window which enables you to replace missing fonts quite easily.

If your Font Manager app (e.g. FontBase) supports auto-activation then you can use it to get missing fonts automatically activated as soon Affinity is missing an installed but not activated font.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Since you're using FontBa.se, it's quite easy. Firstly, I'd start with organising the fonts, if not done yet. Organise them into separate folders like "Serif", "Sans-Serif", "Gothic", "Display", "Handwritten" etc. 

Add those folders to auto watch in Fontbase. An incredibly powerful feature, it'll add fonts automatically to the list if you copy them into the folders. No need for manual scanning for new fonts anymore... These steps are not really necessary, but they will make the search for fonts faster (and font handling less confusing in general).

Now, when you open a document in Publisher, it'll tell you, which fonts are missing. Fontbase has a quite good search feature. Search for the font (top search bar) and activate it. Search for the next font, activate. Rinse and repeat until you've activated all fonts.

Publisher will replace the fonts automatically after you've activated them! You don't need to assign them manually. At least it does so when running Windows (10). 

Once you're done with the document, deactivate the fonts in fontbase again. This way, you'll run your OS with only as little fonts as needed for daily use.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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2 hours ago, iconoclast said:

As I saw some minutes ago, FontBase also exists for Windows and Linux. For free! Haven't tested it yet, but it might be very helpful. Is anyone out there who has made experiences with it on Windows? Don't want to kill my system with it.

Looks like @Andy05 posted about using it on Windows just above your post.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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3 hours ago, iconoclast said:

As I saw some minutes ago, FontBase also exists for Windows and Linux. For free! Haven't tested it yet, but it might be very helpful. Is anyone out there who has made experiences with it on Windows? Don't want to kill my system with it.

It's actually surprisingly lightweight on the system—considering this app's features. As for experience with it, see my previous post (like @walt.farrell mentioned).

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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Many years ago I had a Window application (it came on a magazine CD) that would assess the quality of fonts on your system by looking at scaffolding and other parameters. It was a useful tool that allowed you to sort/keep the quality fonts from the poor ones. I am not sure if such an application exists today.

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1 hour ago, Catshill said:

Many years ago I had a Window application (it came on a magazine CD) that would assess the quality of fonts on your system by looking at scaffolding and other parameters. It was a useful tool that allowed you to sort/keep the quality fonts from the poor ones. I am not sure if such an application exists today.

I’ve never heard of ‘scaffolding’ in relation to fonts! What does it do?

Can you remember the name of the application?

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Hi Catshill!

Do you mean something like FontForge, what is a font editor to create your own fonts or even to manipulate existing fonts (what could cause legal problems, by the way). FontForge is free and open source. I remember that I once had a commercial equivalent ("Fontographer" or so?), a very long time ago, but I never really worked with it.

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3 hours ago, Alfred said:

I’ve never heard of ‘scaffolding’ in relation to fonts! What does it do?

I wonder if it was a form of coverage analysis, to tell you which fonts were more complete in their glyph content, and wouldn't need to use fallback to get all the characters.

There's a free Windows app called BabelPad, which is a Unicode-based text editor, that can take a chunk of text and tell you which fonts installed on your system can completely display it, for example.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I wonder if it was a form of coverage analysis, to tell you which fonts were more complete in their glyph content, and wouldn't need to use fallback to get all the characters.

But in terms of "quality" / "poor", as @Catshill mentioned, it would also filter high quality fonts this way because a font does not need to use all possible glyphs to have a good quality, even years before Unicode fonts. Compare for instance fonts with illustrations instead of characters, e.g. arrows, circled numbers black or white, pictograms, logos … classical 'dingbat' fonts included.

More guessing: How about readability? Filtering fonts which are suitable for body text from those which are rather for short text like headlines? (no idea how it could work but it sounds like a kind of ‘scaffolding’ service in terms of 'pedagogic'.)

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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9 minutes ago, thomaso said:

But in terms of "quality" / "poor", as @Catshill mentioned

But in terms of quality, as @Catshill, mentioned, what does "scaffolding" mean? That's what I was trying to answer.

There are numerous possible meanings for quality :)

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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@Walt, I don't know either, I was just considering. And guessing, too. How about ‘scaffolding’ as synonym for 'framework' or 'grid' … as a technical aspect of data created for the characters in a font file? – Maybe @LibreTraining will shed light on this.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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I have never heard of 'scaffolding' used as a term related to end-user font quality assessment. So I guess we need some clarification as to what that actually means.

As mentioned already, coverage is a common end-user assessment tool. Font developers use a number of different quality assessment tools, but those would not normally be the kind of thing found in a user app.

So I too am interested in what 'scaffolding' means in relation to font quality assessment.

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I suppose it's a misunderstanding. In fact font designers use some kind of scaffolding to create the characters e.g. related to the proportions of the golden ratio, to get a harmonic type face. But I don't think that a fundamental scaffold for all fonts exists. There is also at least one decorative font on the market that is named "Scaffold" and has a scaffold-look. But the scaffold in this case is not used for construction, but as a sort of texture. I have a book from Adrian Frutiger in which he described how he designed fonts, using circles and lines as a kind of scaffold for construction. But it is individual for every font. Otherwise all fonts would look the same, I think.

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Thanks for the feedback and re scaffolding I am sorry that obviously a memory problem (I told you it was a long time ago) have led the thread down something of a wild goose chase. 

Nevertheless, although I don't remember it's name, I do remember the application was very useful in analysing and assessing (not designing or modifying) fonts. 

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22 minutes ago, Catshill said:

Thanks for the feedback and re scaffolding

I'm still curious: What did/do you mean by "scaffolding"? Was the usage in your first post different from the second? It seems that it referred in the first post to any technical aspect of font files, while in the second post to the support by forum users. – So it wasn't a technical term related to fonts at all?

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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For bonus points: John Lennon was in a band with the brother of one of those guys. Name the band and the brother.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

one of those guys

The guy in question being known professionally as Mike McGear. Revealing his birth name would be too big a clue about who his brother is!

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Just now, mynnzer said:

I'm old enough to have seen both the Beatles and Scaffold perform live! 

Not on the same stage, presumably! Or at least not at the same time.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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14 hours ago, thomaso said:

I'm still curious: What did/do you mean by "scaffolding"? Was the usage in your first post different from the second? It seems that it referred in the first post to any technical aspect of font files, while in the second post to the support by forum users. – So it wasn't a technical term related to fonts at all?

If I remember (and clearly my memory cannot be trusted*), it referred to the invisible grid that the character was constructed inside. This however is a diversion from the point I was trying to make.

*If you have ever listened to Count Arthur Strong (strangely enough, I saw him live last night) you will know what I mean.

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