Mark.A Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 Hello everyone, relatively new to Affinity software (6 months approx). My problem is, since updating Mac to Ventura the other day some fonts in my Publisher documents are now showing Exclamation mark (!) in front of the name and Font Manager says "Unsupported characters used". I have read some topics here about the issue, I get an idea what the problem is but can't find solution. Just to mention that before upgrade I absolutely did NOT have that issue. It seems to happen only to Affinity softwares, checked Designer and same issue is happening. Tried few other softwares "Pages" or "Text Edit" and font's have no issues there. Now suddenly seems like a lots of my fonts on my computer that I used before are not working properly in Affinity. I would say about 30% of fonts are now showing with Exclamation mark?!? Any idea why is this happening, are you guys aware of the issue, are you working on an update to rectify this. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 The exclamation mark indicates, as the message indicated, that you've used a character that is not present in the font. When you do that, either you'll get a "not found" symbol (often an empty rectangle) or, more usually, the character will be substituted with one from another font you have installed that does contain that character. Generally it means you should use a different character, or pick a different font. Quote -- 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff stokerg Posted November 8, 2022 Staff Share Posted November 8, 2022 12 hours ago, Professional said: Now suddenly seems like a lots of my fonts on my computer that I used before are not working properly in Affinity. I would say about 30% of fonts are now showing with Exclamation mark?!? Could you copy and paste one of the text boxes that shows the issue into a new document and attach it here? I can check it on MacOS 12 as well as 13 and see if the behaviour is different. But as @walt.farrellhas pointed out, normally when you see this, you need to use a font that does have that character or pick a different but supported character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 12 hours ago, Professional said: Any idea why is this happening Just last week I had something similar. That wasn't on Ventura but on [drum roll] El Capitan, but the basic culprit is usually the same since the early days of Mac OS X:System font cache corruption Onyx is a free and reliable software that has a "font cache cleaner": titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html Try that. Make sure to read the instructions and follow the steps exactly. It can be that it doesn't help and the culprit is elsewhere, but at least this cleaning procedure won't do any harm either. Quote MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark.A Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 @walt.farrell thanks for reply. As mentioned I sort of understand what it means, but the thing is we did not have this problem two weeks ago, it only happened after the update. I am looking for solution. Sure I can change the font and use different but that makes it not really a solution because;- a) that will mean let's say 30% of fonts in my computer are suddenly not usable by Affinity anymore b) all the artworks that are approved by clients that are saved, all of them will have to be re-opened, fonts in question changed and then sent to clients for another approval which is really not something one wants to go into. @stokerg Please find test file attached, font used is called "Damascus" or ['! Damascus' as it stands now]. test-file.afpub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashf Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 In additional to Onyx, have you tried Preferences>Misc>Reset Fonts in Affinity? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark.A Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 I have not tried Onyx yet, was looking if I can find solution without third party software first. I have tried Preferences>Misc>Reset Fonts in Affinity but when pressing the "Reset Fonts" button, nothing happens. Button clicks/blinks, but you don't see it doing anything. It just blinks very quickly and if that is the function that did no change anything. Issue is still here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bruce Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 @Mark.A, There are no Latin characters (a b c etc) in Damascus. It is Arabic only. walt.farrell 1 Quote Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 Affinity Designer 2.4.1 | Affinity Photo 2.4.1 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.1 | Beta versions as they appear. I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashf Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 15 minutes ago, Old Bruce said: @Mark.A, There are no Latin characters (a b c etc) in Damascus. It is Arabic only. That's what I thought. but he says there was no problem before. so I thought he hadn't seen the exclamation mark until updated the Mac. Affinity does not show the "fallback" fonts on Ventura. If it's about Latin characters, it's definitely the fallback fonts problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark.A Posted November 9, 2022 Author Share Posted November 9, 2022 Hm, puzzling now but I am pretty confident that exclamation mark was not there before. No I am not writing or trying to write in Arabic. The ad that I had saved using Damascus, the font was fine written in Latin characters (English language). Also I am thinking I would have seen that "Unsupported characters used" in "Font Manager, I go to Font Manager occasionally but now puzzled a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 2 hours ago, Mark.A said: solution without third party software first Well, that would be typing the appropriate command to delete the cache files into the Terminal app. If you know what to type in there, that is. Because that's essentially what Onyx is doing overall. All it adds is a comfortable user interface so that you don't have to type anything, just click a few buttons. Quote MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashf Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 33 minutes ago, Mark.A said: Hm, puzzling now but I am pretty confident that exclamation mark was not there before. No I am not writing or trying to write in Arabic. The ad that I had saved using Damascus, the font was fine written in Latin characters (English language). Also I am thinking I would have seen that "Unsupported characters used" in "Font Manager, I go to Font Manager occasionally but now puzzled a bit. Like I mentioned in the linked topic, missing characters were shown with the fallback font on Monterey and older. So I assume you were seeing Latin text with the fallback font. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 3 hours ago, Mark.A said: Please find test file attached, font used is called "Damascus" or ['! Damascus' as it stands now]. Alright. So, I'm on El Capitan, but with Damascus active, I also see the exclamation mark when selecting text. The actual text appears as Lucida Grande which is (or was? I don't know about Ventura & co.) the standard "last resort fallback font" on MacOS. Upon inspecting Damascus with FontExplorer, there are no Latin characters whatsoever, at least not in this version which is 10.0d5e1. You may want to use it if you want to have Arabic characters in your layout, but keep in mind that Affinity doesn't support right-to-left typing. Mark.A and ashf 2 Quote MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark.A Posted November 9, 2022 Author Share Posted November 9, 2022 12 minutes ago, loukash said: Well, that would be typing the appropriate command to delete the cache files into the Terminal app. If you know what to type in there, that is. Because that's essentially what Onyx is doing overall. All it adds is a comfortable user interface so that you don't have to type anything, just click a few buttons. Will look into that @loukash , thanks for the info. In mean time, did select few random fonts on a text, and ones that are appearing with '!' are mostly those arabic type fonts and ones with some sort of 'special characters' etc... So it could be connected with the latin vs arabic vs special characters... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark.A Posted November 9, 2022 Author Share Posted November 9, 2022 3 minutes ago, loukash said: Alright. So, I'm on El Capitan, but with Damascus active, I also see the exclamation mark when selecting text. The actual text appears as Lucida Grande which is (or was? I don't know about Ventura & co.) the standard "last resort fallback font" on MacOS. Upon inspecting Damascus with FontExplorer, there are no Latin characters whatsoever, at least not in this version which is 10.0d5e1. You may want to use it if you want to have Arabic characters in your layout, but keep in mind that Affinity doesn't support right-to-left typing. Yeah it appears more to be the case, this particular font may be used with Arabic writing only. Lucida Grande is main substitute in Ventura too and that actually may be the font I am seeing even though when selecting text I see "Damascus" [! Damascus]. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 11 minutes ago, Mark.A said: this particular font may be used with Arabic writing only Exactly. Which is why I'm disabling any font that I'll never use for typing or even reading – or the lack of, haha – right away. At least those that MacOS allows us to disable, that is. There are still way too many "useless" but mandatory fonts in /System/Library/Fonts that I actually wouldn't want to see in my font list. Quote MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark.A Posted November 9, 2022 Author Share Posted November 9, 2022 OK, basically it may be than that all the font's with '!' are actually Lucida Grande. So whenever we see "Unsupported characters used" we should basically just reselect font to Lucida Grande as that is what is actually used (and that is what client approved in my case. Hm... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashf Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 Fallback font causes a problem when you expert the document. You always should assign a proper font. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark.A Posted November 9, 2022 Author Share Posted November 9, 2022 10 minutes ago, loukash said: Exactly. Which is why I'm disabling any font that I'll never use for typing or even reading – or the lack of, haha – right away. At least those that MacOS allows us to disable, that is. There are still way too many "useless" but mandatory fonts in /System/Library/Fonts that I actually wouldn't want to see in my font list. Yeah, I actually set up on that mission now, to Deactivate all the fonts that I know I won't ever need to use... but of course, first five that I clicked on I got "System Fonts Selected - Fonts automatically installed by Apple are selected. These fonts cannot be deleted or deactivated." Yeah there is going be lot of font's left that are useless, but still in Publisher as options. Maybe an idea for Affinity to create way to disable fonts inside the Affinity. I mean if software can identify the font by putting '!' in front of it, maybe there is an "easy way" to create function in preferences "disable this font". Just an idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 (edited) You can create your custom font collections – also "smart" ones – with your favorites in the Font Book app. Affinity will see them upon relaunch and display in the menu in the Characters panel where it says "All Fonts" by default. The same popup menu is also in the modal Paragraph Styles window. But not in the context toolbar, duh. Edited November 9, 2022 by loukash Mark.A 1 Quote MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenmcd Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 17 minutes ago, Mark.A said: OK, basically it may be than that all the font's with '!' are actually Lucida Grande. So whenever we see "Unsupported characters used" we should basically just reselect font to Lucida Grande as that is what is actually used (and that is what client approved in my case. Hm... Fallback fonts may change with what other fonts you have installed. To see what was actually used - Export to PDF and use your PDF editor/reader to check the text and see what font was actually embedded. ashf and Mark.A 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark.A Posted November 9, 2022 Author Share Posted November 9, 2022 20 minutes ago, LibreTraining said: Fallback fonts may change with what other fonts you have installed. To see what was actually used - Export to PDF and use your PDF editor/reader to check the text and see what font was actually embedded. Thanks for the suggestion. kenmcd 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomaso Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 On 11/9/2022 at 12:45 AM, Mark.A said: I have not tried Onyx yet, was looking if I can find solution without third party software first. Booting your mac in "Safe Mode" would clean the font cache: https://support.apple.com/HT201262"it deletes some system caches, including font caches" loukash 1 Quote macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 1 hour ago, thomaso said: "it deletes some system caches, including font caches" Alright, but sometimes you just need to sweep the kitchen floor because you've dropped something there. While the rest of your apartment is still clean. Quote MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomaso Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 In that case: Leaf blower or rake? – The simplest might be via Terminal.app: atsutil databases -removeUser and logout+login. – Or, to read first what is does: man atsutil Quote macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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