Jim Slade Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 I have fractions, as in one-half, as 1_2. How can I kern such that the "_" is centered below the "1." I cannot seem to get the "_" to extend past the "1." I get something like 1 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron P. Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Like this? I just typed the Numerator giving it an Underline, then hit enter, typed the Denominator. It also had the Underline, so I highlighted it, and removed the Underline from it. Curious, why not just use the Fraction setting found in the Character panel, Typography? Granted it does not place one above the other, but uses the common / (slash). Quote Affinity Photo 2.2..; Affinity Designer 2.2..; Affinity Publisher 2.2..; Affinity2 Beta versions. Affinity Photo,Designer 1.10.6.1605 Win10 Home Version:21H2, Build: 19044.1766: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s);32GB Ram, Nvidia GTX 3070, 3-Internal HDD (1 Crucial MX5000 1TB, 1-Crucial MX5000 500GB, 1-WD 1 TB), 4 External HDD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 I don't know how well the original Nutso font works in Affinity applications as I have modified a version a little (as well as rolled a heavily modified version of the code into one of my fonts). It's a sans serif font that does nut fractions. Nutso is available on Github. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Oh. For common fractions (1/4, 1/2, 3/4), you need to remove the autocorrect entries from the preferences... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seneca Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 I haven't checked Nutso font myself but according to this post from 2018 Affinity Designer handles it correctly. Unless something changed in v2. https://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?t=7783 Quote 2017 27” iMac 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 • Radeon Pr 580 8GB • 64GB • Ventura 13.3. iPad Pro (10.5-inch) • 256GB • Version 16.4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 4 minutes ago, Seneca said: I haven't checked Nutso font myself but according to this post from 2018 Affinity Designer handles it correctly. Unless something changed in v2. https://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?t=7783 Should still work. I was in that thread--and it was frustrating... Seneca 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Slade Posted January 4 Author Share Posted January 4 8 hours ago, Ron P. said: Like this? I just typed the Numerator giving it an Underline, then hit enter, typed the Denominator. It also had the Underline, so I highlighted it, and removed the Underline from it. Curious, why not just use the Fraction setting found in the Character panel, Typography? Granted it does not place one above the other, but uses the common / (slash). Except what happens with 1_16? These came from an InDesign file with a huge number of fractions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 29 minutes ago, Jim Slade said: Except what happens with 1_16? These came from an InDesign file with a huge number of fractions. Affinity apps, as you mentioned, restrict negative kerning to the bounding box of the preceding character, which is a serious flaw. So whether you can achieve what you aim at much depends on the font, but would still not work other than with single figures, if even then (as in the screenshot below where "1" is very narrow and underscore character long (a workaround would be scaling down width of the underscore character to make it the same width as the figures). InDesign does not have similar limitations: If a workaround requires separate constructions, it does not work well in situations where any kinds of edits need to be done affecting the text flow and/or formatting, so unless fraction formatting cannot be used, a kind of a special font shown above might be a possible solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Nutso...faffing around sucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 16 hours ago, Ron P. said: Curious, why not just use the Fraction setting found in the Character panel, Typography? Granted it does not place one above the other, but uses the common / (slash). Why not just use a slash between two numbers to get 'inline' fractions like 3/16 or 5/64 or the like? That doesn't require any special fonts so everything adjacent can be set using the same font. Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V23.0 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 Affinity Photo 1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 Where there is a will, there is a way. Sometimes you have to think literally a bit out of the box. Think the unthinkable. I actually got out of bed to post this as it occured to me while half asleep. Let's see if you can figure it out until I wake up. 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...
lacerto Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 Alright, my solution above is pretty simple, just subscript, superscript, kerning and No Break. Optionally vertical/horizontal scale if the dash is too thin or too thick, or if the basic sub/superscript results in odd sizes or positions. Can be saved as character styles. The actual trick is the string sequence. Since we're doing a layout and no real time math, the exact character sequence doesn't matter: This works around the bounding box limit of the preceding character as no characters will fully overlap. 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...
Jim Slade Posted January 5 Author Share Posted January 5 13 hours ago, R C-R said: Why not just use a slash between two numbers to get 'inline' fractions like 3/16 or 5/64 or the like? That doesn't require any special fonts so everything adjacent can be set using the same font. The illustrations come from a package that uses horizontal lines for fractions. Plus, the document has hundreds of fractions imported from InDesign. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 3 minutes ago, Jim Slade said: the document has hundreds of fractions imported from InDesign That will be the tedious part then. Any Publisher solution will likely have to be fine-tuned manually and individually for each fraction. 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...
lacerto Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 14 minutes ago, loukash said: The actual trick is the string sequence. I used the same trick. IMO it is really a convoluted "solution", and if the document needs to be distributed also digitally and copying is allowed, change of character sequence (especially in any scientific context, e.g. formulas, or just figures), could cause serious issues. I would personally use it in print-only context, and in isolated cases. If a document has lots of these, using a different kind of fraction notation, or a special font as shown above, would be the way to go (or if at all possible, using a different app). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 4 minutes ago, lacerto said: I used the same trick. Yeah, it's no rocket science. 1 minute ago, lacerto said: I would personally use it in print-only context Definitely. Since the source is an IDML though, that's what I would have expected in this case. For a technical digital document, why use a layout app in the first place? 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...
loukash Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 5 minutes ago, lacerto said: distributed also digitally and copying is allowed, change of character sequence (especially in any scientific context, e.g. formulas, or just figures), could cause serious issues. Speaking of which though, you can't rely on an exact character sequence anyway when copying from a PDF. 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...
lacerto Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 8 hours ago, loukash said: For a technical digital document, why use a layout app in the first place? Do you mean dissertations, documents with equations, etc? We have done dozens of them with InDesign, just using proper tools like MathType. Sources have been written in various ways, most often though using Word, but also with different kinds of LaTeX editing systems (typically on Linux). We normally just batch export equations from Word to EPS documents and then use scripts to make inline replacements in InDesign. No need for resizing and very little need for manual adjustments, and the layout can contain hundreds of equations. These are robust workflows and make it possible to create sophisticated technical publications without needing to use tools like FrameMaker, but getting proficient with workflows involving scientific text and miscellaneous technical elements naturally takes some time, and proper tools, and often also scripting skills. Publisher certainly is not a tool that I would dream to use for anything like this. 8 hours ago, loukash said: Speaking of which though, you can't rely on an exact character sequence anyway when copying from a PDF. No, but just copying from a PDF text elements like this: gives you this: a) When PDF is produced from Publisher, doing the kinds of silly tricks shown in this thread: _28417+6b23 b) When produced from InDesign, using just kerning: 81 + b3 _ 24762 c) From a PDF when using inline equations produced with MathType and used as inline EPS/PDF/WMF equations: 81 + b3 24762 More complex equations could not of course be copy pasted at all, but then again, you also would not get mixed character orders etc. And you can use search to successfully find character string sequences within fractions, equations etc. loukash 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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