Version 2 (V2) Doesn't Have Language Support for Indic Languages—Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Odia, Bengali, Etc.

[Ronald N. Tan]

This thread is for people (like me) who are interested and hoping for support of Indic languages in Affinity Version 2 (V2). Sadly, there is still no support for Indic languages as of this moment, the 9th November, 2022. Features may be added in a future point-update or point-release.

Let's all remain positive and hopeful that the staff and developers at Serif keeps the dialogue for Indic Languages and RTL Language support as open.

[Dev Kulkarni]

I genuinely am willing to pay the 40% discount back to Serif if they add the Indic Font Support. Just hire despo Indian developers who like affinity already. They'll  probably do it  without prompting

[Ronald N. Tan]

On 11/28/2022 at 9:26 AM, Dev Kulkarni said:

I genuinely am willing to pay the 40% discount back to Serif if they add the Indic Font Support. Just hire despo Indian developers who like affinity already. They'll  probably do it  without prompting

I remain hopeful and positive, but based on the development cycle of Affinity Suite of Applications (Designer, Photo, and Publisher), I am not holding my breath. Here is to hoping that Serif puts Indic and RTL languages on their internal product development roadmap for version 3.

Until that day arrives, I will vote with wallet and not upgrade to Publisher 2.X or to the full Suite of Applications.

[DaWerd]

Yes we also won't buy Affinity until it can support indic, RTL and vertical script.

[NB2022]

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for this for years now and am starting to lose hope... Publisher would be such an amazing product if it had proper Indic language support.

[prabhu.thi]

Need tamil font support. Pls let us know the updates on the same.

[Proton]

When will this become reality... After V1 shelled out money for V2 and eagerly installed V2.2 also... No updates... Gimp could easily implement ages ago, and Inkscape, why Affinity is struggling? I tried langugage, script etc in Styles... no luck, it doesn't render the glyph as they should.

[Pocomedia]

This what stoping me to use Affinity...why can't Affinity fix this problem even gimp can do it so sad..... 

[sherymon]

I am wondering how many more decades it will take to implement this feature...? Will it ever come?

[ChimpJr.]

I am voicing in to request to include support for Indic Language text in the upcoming future updates. Affinity Designer V2 is outstanding overall, but it only lacks to fully support Indic Language text/typing.

Hey Serif developers, it would be great if you could please add support for Indic Languages.

Edited February 8, 2024 by Rajesh.Maskal

[Rajja]

For what its worth, I echo the same for the nth time.  Affinity is a great solution; it  may need a major change to the text processing to support Indic font - but that would be an investment for sure, considering the the scale of market that it can reap.  

[KSD]

I would buy the Affinity Suite immediately if it had support for Indic languages like Hindi and Bengali. That lack is the only thing stopping me from buying the software, and I am sure there are thousands of other people of the same mind.

[wonderings]

I wonder if this will be something that will come when the transition to Canva is complete. It seems like Canva itself already supports Hindi languages among others, so they must have a team to support those languages already which would in my mind make it easier to add support for those languages. 

[Frozen Death Knight]

RTL support was on the list of priorities since around last year when Serif did an interview and mentioned it. Designer is fairly popular in Japan so it became an incentive to improve it. I think I recall it being mentioned as well when Canva acquired Serif, so it's likely only a matter of time.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

RTL support was on the list of priorities since around last year when Serif did an interview and mentioned it.

 

1 hour ago, অরুণ সরকার said:

I asked it (Fully LTR support for Indic Languages) from PagePlus X5 🙃

I suspect that RTL support for Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, etc. will be higher on Serif’s priority list than LTR support for Unicode Indic fonts.

[Alfred]

On 1/26/2024 at 2:53 PM, sherymon said:

I am wondering how many more decades it will take to implement this feature...? Will it ever come?

Fun fact: Malayalam is the only language in the world whose name is a palindrome.

[wonderings]

6 hours ago, অরুণ সরকার said:

Yes CANVA support Indic languages fully. And I think Serif never bother to provide support those scripts.

For Client's sent file I use "open type" font with other Software and for Affinity I use ANSI 😂

Not sure if you are aware but Canva bought Affinity, so there will be new leadership and I am assuming a larger development team to fit within the Canva family. This is why I think there is a better chance of this coming as Canva supports these other languages, I am sure they would want to have their entire family of apps all usable around the world. 

[Proton]

.Affinity/Canva Guys have courtesy and courage to answer..is it a lack of competence in indic scripts? It's not a question of priority because it is pending for more than 5 years. It could have been prioritised ten times. I believe it's a competence question. 

[Hayavadana]

Subject: Request for Full Support of Indic Unicode Fonts in Affinity Suite

Dear Serif Development Team,

I am a dedicated user of the Affinity Suite and truly appreciate the powerful features your software offers. However, I (along with many other users) am facing a major issue: Affinity does not fully support Indian regional Unicode fonts (such as Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Odia, etc.).

Issue Details:

• Text rendering is broken or incorrect for complex Indian scripts.
• Ligatures and conjunct characters do not form properly.
• Many OpenType features needed for Indic scripts are missing.

Why This Matters:

• India has over 500 million native speakers of these languages, many of whom are designers, publishers, and content creators.
• Competing software like Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Word, and Scribus handle Indic scripts correctly. Affinity’s lack of support makes it difficult to use for professional publishing.
• Many users, including me, are willing to switch to Affinity fully—but this issue is a major blocker.

Proposed Solution:

We request Serif to consider integrating Harfbuzz, an open-source text-shaping engine, which is already used by Adobe, Microsoft, and Google to support complex scripts. This would significantly improve Affinity’s usability for a global audience.

Final Request:

Can you please confirm if Indic language support is on your development roadmap? Even a rough timeline would be helpful for users who are eagerly waiting for this fix.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We truly appreciate your efforts in making Affinity an industry-leading design tool.

Best regards,

 

B. S. Hayavadana

[ATLASkeeda]

Scoured the forums and disappointed to know that this issue has been going around for many years now. ChatGPT led to a sad but working solution:

Works only for the Kruti Dev Family but SOMETHING is better than nothing!

Let us know if it works for you

[Proton]

Guys, do you even care to respond? My creativity is curtailed by Affinity's inability!

[walt.farrell]

19 hours ago, Proton said:

Guys, do you even care to respond? My creativity is curtailed by Affinity's inability!

Serif generally does not respond in the Feedback portion of the forum, by their stated policy, so they probably will not respond now, either.

 

[Hanson D]

Dear Affinity Team,

I hope this message finds you well.

I’m writing as a long-time user and passionate supporter of the Affinity Suite, particularly Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, which I use regularly for professional design and language-based content creation.

However, I’ve encountered a significant limitation that affects a large user base, especially in India and South Asia. Affinity apps currently do not support complex text layout (CTL) rendering required for Indic scripts such as Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, etc.

For example, when typing the Malayalam combination "ൺട" (ṇṭa), it appears broken or incorrectly shaped in Affinity Photo. This issue occurs with several common conjuncts, such as:

• "ൺ" + "ട" → "ണ്‍ട" (should render as "ണ്ഡ്")

• "റ്റ" + "്" + "ക" → "റ്റ്ക" (should be properly ligatured)

In comparison, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator handle this perfectly by offering an option to enable the Middle Eastern & South Asian Composer, which supports Unicode shaping, ligatures, and GSUB features of OpenType fonts.

---

Why This Feature is Important:

• India has over 700 million users using Indic scripts daily.

• Malayalam and other South Asian languages are heavily used in publishing, social media content, and digital design.

• Current workaround (external software + vector import) is inefficient and breaks text editability.

---

Suggested Improvements:

1. Add native complex script rendering support (Indic shaping, GSUB, GPOS).

2. Provide a Text Composer Option similar to Adobe (e.g., "South Asian Composer").

3. Collaborate with language communities or open-source font initiatives like Google Fonts to test implementation (e.g., Noto Sans Malayalam, Manjari, Rachana).

---

I truly believe this improvement will open up your already powerful suite to millions more users across South Asia. Please consider adding support for Indic scripts in future updates of Affinity.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Warm regards,
Hanson D.

[SanSerif]

Unbelievably, PhotoLine has sucker punched Serif to implement a great text engine that perfectly render Indic fonts. Through Google input tools. I don't type Hindi, but I do type Tamil, and I can tell you it works perfectly. Even rendering the Old Form Tamil. Which is more than a mean achievement. Even Adobe fails for certain old form glyphs. This is a real shame because PL is just a photo editor whereas Affinity Publisher is a DTP tool and is backed by a billion dollar company. PL is written, debugged, improved, maintained, and updated by 2 guys. Just 2. Let that sink in. I told them what the problem was, and they fixed it in less than 2 months, and within 1 beta cycle. 25.005 to 25.006 - the current beta. And remember these guys don't even understand how Tamil text is actually rendered and were working exclusively based on my instructions. I was so impressed by it, I actually paid for a second license, for 79 Euro, despite not needing it - just to support the guys. This must really give you guys at Canva Serif a pause, and ask yourself: "Are we really doing our user base and their loyalty any justice?"    

 

[Alfred]

45 minutes ago, SanSerif said:

PL is just a photo editor

I’ve never used PhotoLine, but from what I’ve read it’s a hybrid vector/raster application, so it’s much more like Affinity Designer than Affinity Photo.