Phonetic Guide Text Support

[Jack Wayneright]

Hello! I would like to add a request for support of phonetic guide text. Phonetic guides are usually small characters directly above/below main content (or beside in the case of vertical text), which show how a word is pronounced. Phonetic guides are frequently used in East Asian languages where characters may have multiple pronunciations. Attached is an example showing phonetic guide text in a news article in Japanese.

Some other names for these guides are "furigana", which is specific to Japanese, and "ruby text" or "ruby characters" (ルビ, 루비, etc), which is another name for these guides (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_character).

For reference to other implementations of phonetic guide text, in HTML5, they can be produced with the `ruby` tag (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ruby). Most major word editors support phonetic guides as well, such as Microsoft Word (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/add-phonetic-guides-to-east-asian-text-c03ad8e4-799b-499e-89a2-c749fc5397e8) and Apple Pages (https://support.apple.com/guide/pages/use-phonetic-guides-tana3a61f9d3/mac).

Currently, the workaround in Affinity seems to be manually positioning smaller text boxes alongside the primary ones. However, this quickly becomes impractical, especially when the text content changes and all phonetic guides need to be rearranged. I think this feature and vertical text (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/68887-japanese-vertical-text/) would go a long way toward making Affinity available for use in applications using East Asian languages. I should note, there was a discussion about "furigana" in a previous thread (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/40881-japanese-furigana-ruby-ルビ/#comment-204976), but it was not in the feature request section, so I felt it might be better to move it here as well as provide additional details.

Thank you for your time!

[MikeTO]

On 6/27/2022 at 6:32 PM, Jack Wayneright said:

Currently, the workaround in Affinity seems to be manually positioning smaller text boxes alongside the primary ones. However, this quickly becomes impractical, especially when the text content changes and all phonetic guides need to be rearranged.

To make the small text frames move with the text as you edit it, float the small text frame and anchor it before the first character of the word.

1. Draw a text frame and format it as desired. While it's selected with the Move tool, click Float in the Pinning panel.
2. Position it above the word.
3. Drag the anchor (a solid blue circle) before the first character of the word.
4. To make additional text frames, duplicate the first one, Float, position it, and drag the anchor.
5. Now edit the text and the frames will move with their anchors.

[davidfahy]

I'd like to second the requests for Japanese furigana (Affinity is essentially useless to me without it) and for Japanese and Chinese vertical text (also a must for me).

[ashf]

As a workaround, the "Pinning" can be used for the Ruby for now.

https://affinity.help/publisher/en-US.lproj/pages/ObjectControl/pinning.html

[AkiTaka]

Thanks again for sharing with us.

Is it possible to add to this discussion in some way?

[AkiTaka]

I forgot to share a technique I learned back last March!

For Right-to-Left Vertically-oriented text:

1. Create a Table with the Table Tool.

2. Depending on how many Asian characters you're using(Japanese and Chinese), Create 1 vertical column and multiple horizontal columns. Start typing in the last column and end in the first column.

3. For Japanese Furigana, use the same method we learned from ashf. (Use "Float with Text" on the Hiragana with the corresponding Kanji.)

Note: For the Chōonpu(long dash used in Katakana), use an "I" instead of a dash for vertically oriented text.

Attached here is an example from the upcoming Japanese translation of my webmanga, Kicktory: Natural Stadium.

Read it in English here: https://medibang.com/mpc/titles/gm2307091046163220003077532/

Hope I was of service!

Edited March 29, 2024 by AkiTaka