Publisher Find / Replace Glyph

[voo]

Hello, can anyone know if it is possible to use GLYPH in Find and Replace? I would like to replace the letter 'a' throughout the text with GLYPH but can't figure it out.

[v_kyr]

Welcome to the forum!

Yes it is possible!

In order to type a Glyph character into the replace panel field, type in the indicated hexadecimal unicode for the character shown in the Glyph panel (for example \u00c3 = Ã etc.) for the corresponding glyph.

• So to replace with "Ã" for example, type into the replace field "\u00c3"!

Just make sure to have the right/same font used in your textframes and also setup in the Glyph panel, so unicode character codes match. - Or in other words, that the Glyph charater you want to use as an replacement also exists in an corresponding used text font!

BTW, using find/replace with reg expressions should offer even more capabilities.

 

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

In order to type a Glyph character into the replace panel field, type in the indicated hexadecimal unicode for the character shown in the Glyph panel (for example \u00c3 = Ã etc.) for the corresponding glyph.

• So to replace with "Ã" for example, type into the replace field "\u00c3"!

For some reason this does not work for me if I type "\u00c3" in the Replace field -- the Replace button replaces the text in the Find field with those 6 characters, not the hex unicode for Ã. It also does not change to that character in the Replace field like in your video.

But weirdly, if I copy the text string  "\u00c3" from your post (or from any other source as text) & paste it into the Replace field, it does change to Ã & it does replace the text in the Find field.

Any idea what I am doing wrong?

EDIT: What I was doing wrong is using / instead of \ as the first character.

Anyway, it would be much more user friendly if we could just double-click on a glyph in the Glyph Browser to insert it in the Replace (or Find) field in the Find & Replace panel, like we can do to insert it into a text block.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

type in the indicated hexadecimal unicode

What key did you press at 0:36sec to make the \u00c get converted into Ä ?

I have tried Tab, Return, Arrows, Space ... but none of them changed my typed Unicode, respectively it worked 1x only (for U+0050 ... P), but I can't repeat it with this or any other Unicode and didn't notice which key made the P appear.

[v_kyr]

53 minutes ago, R C-R said:

EDIT: What I was doing wrong is using / instead of \ as the first character.

LOL, well I've always clearly showed a backslash "\", which is common usage for escaping characters (at least for programmers & keyb users).

59 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Anyway, it would be much more user friendly if we could just double-click on a glyph in the Glyph Browser to insert it in the Replace (or Find) field in the Find & Replace panel, like we can do to insert it into a text block.

Well just one and the same Glyph browser panel therefor would then have to distinguish here between different panels to insert, which it can't do that easily. But with another Glyph panel triggert then from the find/replace settings and associated to it's fields it could!  - However if the one and only actual Glyph panel would have some/a copy to clipboard button function, you could at least paste afterwards into the text fields.

But for people like you on Macs I've another tip, namely use Ctrl-Cmd-Spacebar on the find/replace fields to fetch up the Apple special characters panel, which also has those Latin Glyphs to insert them directly into the find/replace fields!

[v_kyr]

23 minutes ago, thomaso said:

What key did you press at 0:36sec to make the \u00c get converted into Ä ?

Key 3, aka \u00c3, since as soon as you typed in the whole unicode chars (so here the last char of it 3) the Glyph character will immediately appear!

[thomaso]

4 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Key 3, aka \u00c3, since as soon as you typed in the whole unicode chars (so here the last char of it 3) the Glyph character will immediately appear!

Yes! – Wherefrom did you know about the 3?

I can use it with \u00c for Ä … but not with \U+0050 to get P (in Arial). – Are there various of those 'confirmation' keys?

[v_kyr]

27 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Yes! – Wherefrom did you know about the 3?

The Glyph Browser character tooltips tell you also the unicode code to use (U+00c3, which we insert as \u00c3)!

Quote

• Search—Enter a Glyph value, a Unicode value or a text phrase to locate a Glyph or Unicode character. For example, "G+0131", "U+00b0" or the phrase "degree" will all show the degree symbol, respectively.

To set the Panel Preferences:

• Size—Choose a display size for the glyphs; this benefits usability of the panel and does not affect the glyph output size.
• Order—Switches between font Unicode and Glyph order.
• Clear Recently Used—Glyphs you use are added to the bottom of the panel for re-use. This option clears that list.

 

Quote

I can use it with \u00c for Ä … but not with \U+0050 to get P (in Arial). – Are there various of those 'confirmation' keys?

Use the \uxxxx hex notation!

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, thomaso said:

Are there various of those 'confirmation' keys?

It's not a confirmation key. It's simply the last character of the Unicode representation of Ã, \u00c3, as you can see from the Tooltips in the Glyph Browser, or from other Unicode tables or apps:

 

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

In order to type a Glyph character into the replace panel field, type in the indicated hexadecimal unicode for the character shown in the Glyph panel (for example \u00c3 = Ã etc.) for the corresponding glyph.

• So to replace with "Ã" for example, type into the replace field "\u00c3"!

Does not seem to work on Windows. Those physical characters remain in the Replace field. You could probably do something with them in a regular expression, but not directly as far as I can see.

 

[v_kyr]

13 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Does not seem to work on Windows.

Works fine on MacOs ...

 

 

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Works fine on MacOs ...

Yes, I saw that from your previous video clip.

[thomaso]

Thank you @v_kyr and @walt.farrell, so I was confused because in the video the 3 did not show up 😅

But then I still got stuck because the code shown in the Glyph Panel does not work. It says capital U and a + symbol … whereas I have to use a small u and no + .

.

Any idea why the Glyph panel does show it in this way which does not work? – Or is it rather an issue of F&R?

EDIT: I guess I was simply misinterpreting the syntax, actually the capital letter and the + is a common way to write modifier keys, as in CMD+P for the print command … etc.

Edited September 22, 2022 by thomaso

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Well just one and the same Glyph browser panel therefor would then have to distinguish here between different panels to insert, which it can't do that easily.

Why do think so? Just like I can place the text cursor in a text block & double-click on a glyph in the browser to place it in that text, why could I not do the same thing if the text cursor is placed in the Find or Replace field in the F&R panel?

It is simply a matter of which field has the focus, just like for copying or pasting text, is it not?

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Does not seem to work on Windows.

Have you tried copying (for example) the text \u00c3 from one of these posts & pasting that into the Replace field?

[voo]

Hello, thank you for your replies. Actually the way with typing Unicode (e.g. \u00c3) works on Mac. But is there any way when the glyph only has a designation e.g. G+012f ? Of course I have tried \g012f, \G+012f but it doesn't work.

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, voo said:

But is there any way when the glyph only has a designation e.g. G+012f ? Of course I have tried \g012f, \G+012f but it doesn't work.

For typing in you've to determine the Unicode representation for the selected Glyph of that Akurrat LL font! - Or instead place it's Glyph into the frametext and copy/paste it then over from there into the find/replace fields. Afterwards delete that character from the frametext!

Other than that see also for Affinity ...

• Special Characters and Glyphs (Affinity help)

... and more commonly ...

• Unicode tutorial - Characters vs Glyphs
• Font character map
• Unicode Lookup
• Unicode Character Search
• Shapecatcher
• Unicode block

... and for Windows users ...

• Insert ASCII or Unicode Latin-based symbols and characters

 

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, thomaso said:

EDIT: I guess I was simply misinterpreting the syntax, actually the capital letter and the + is a common way to write modifier keys, as in CMD+P for the print command … etc.

The Glyph Browser is showing it to you in the way that you would use to type it into your document, which is normally where the Glyph Browser comes into play.

Example: In Publisher (not sure about Photo/Designer as I'm away from the computer), using the Frame Text Tool, or the Artistic Text Tool, type U+00c3 and then press Alt+U (Windows) or Opt+U (Mac) or use Text > Toggle Unicode.

[thomaso]

48 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

type U+00c3 and then press Alt+U (Windows) or Opt+U (Mac) or use Text > Toggle Unicode.

Thank you, good to know! (I haven't used this before) So it indeed makes sense to be displayed that way in the glyph browser's tooltip – which on the other hand confuses by not working with this syntax in the F&R panel. Is this different usage within the F&R panel documented somewhere? In @v_kyr's help quote it is not, nor in the topics Find & Replace or Find & Replace Panel. … but somewhere else?

By the way, on mac the Affinity shortcut for toggling Unicode is CTRL+U, while OPT+U creates a singular, sole Umlaut for separate typing of ¨ plus e.g. a to achieve ä.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Or instead place it's Glyph into the frametext and copy/paste it then over from there into the find/replace fields. Afterwards delete that character from the frametext!

All things considered, I think that since double-clicking on the glyph in the Glyph Browser panel will insert that glyph into any document text field, this copy/paste & then delete method seems to be the quickest, easiest, & most goofproof method of adding glyphs that can't be typed directly from ythe keyboard to the F&R fields. 

 However, I still think the way it should work is, with the text cursor in either F&R field, that double-clicking on the glyph in the Glyph Browser panel should insert that glyph into the field.

[v_kyr]

31 minutes ago, R C-R said:

However, I still think the way it should work is, with the text cursor in either F&R field, that double-clicking on the glyph in the Glyph Browser panel should insert that glyph into the field.

Could be done with the Glyph panel button insert method, when taking the two additional IB Outlets for the find/replace textfields into account, checking then for their views panel if it is alraedy loaded into mem (aka available) and if one of the textfields isFirstResponder. - The whole could also be assigned to another button click-/doubleclick event, like Ctrl-doubleclick etc., in case one want's to distingush those then by another/different mouse+key trigger event.

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

In @v_kyr's help quote it is not, nor in the topics Find & Replace or Find & Replace Panel. … but somewhere else?

Look more careful into one of my above shown Special Characters and Glyphs (Affinity help) links ...

Quote

To insert glyphs/Unicode characters directly using Hex code:

1. Click for an insertion point in the text.
2. Do one of the following:
   • For a glyph: Type 'G+' then enter the Hex code, e.g. '02F5' or '2F5'.
   • For a Unicode character: Type 'U+' then the Hex code, e.g. '0040', '040' or '40'.
3. Toggle from code to displayed character by using Text>Toggle Unicode. Toggle back to Hex code using the same command; keep insertion point at end of character.

Glyphs of the same hexadecimal character code may be different between fonts. Applying a new font to text may cause some characters to be displayed as rectangles or not at all, which indicates no glyph is defined for the affected character codes within that font.

 

[thomaso]

27 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

For a Unicode character: Type 'U+'

My point & experience is that literally 'U+' entry does not work in the F&R field. There it seems to require instead just 'u', no capitals and no + symbol.

[Old Bruce]

For what it is worth I have always used Copy and Paste of the glyph itself to get it into the Find and Replace fields. Sadly we cannot copy to the clipboard from the Glyphs panel.

[v_kyr]

29 minutes ago, thomaso said:

My point & experience is that literally 'U+' entry does not work in the F&R field. There it seems to require instead just 'u', no capitals and no + symbol.

Again wrong for the F&R fields, not just 'u' it highly requires "\u...." so the backslash is essentiell too here! - So please don't forget the backslash!

[thomaso]

Thanks, that's correct, in my question referred to 'U+' only.
So again, did you know about '\u' instead of 'U+' for F&R by an info in the Help (or another Serif source) – or e.g. by your general coding skills?