Special Character (Character Map) in Affinity Designer on Windows

[gotanidea]

Is there a way to insert bullet point as a special character (Character Map) into a text in Affinity Designer on Windows?

I know there are some buttons to automate the bullet point generation in Affinity Designer, but they are too restrictive sometimes.

In Adobe Illustrator, VectorStyler and Notepad++ on Windows, we can insert a bullet point into a text, by pressing Alt + 0149 keys. Doing this in Affinity Designer will just generate an outlined rectangle

[v_kyr]

The easiest is probably to drag those out of the Glyph Browser. Afterwards copy/paste those where needed.

[gcvrsa]

7 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

Is there a way to insert bullet point as a special character (Character Map) into a text in Affinity Designer on Windows?

I know there are some buttons to automate the bullet point generation in Affinity Designer, but they are too restrictive sometimes.

In Adobe Illustrator, VectorStyler and Notepad++ on Windows, we can insert a bullet point into a text, by pressing Alt + 0149 keys. Doing this in Affinity Designer will just generate an outlined rectangle

Alt + 0149 works fine on my system. If it is showing as a rectangle on your system, then the font you have selected may not contain a glyph for that character node.

[gotanidea]

6 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

The easiest is probably to drag those out of the Glyph Browser. Afterwards copy/paste those where needed.

Thanks

[gotanidea]

3 minutes ago, gcvrsa said:

Alt + 0149 works fine on my system. If it is showing as a rectangle on your system, then the font you have selected may not contain a glyph for that character node.

The font is Arial Regular and I just installed Affinity Designer. Do I have to set some stuff to use the Alt + 0149?

[gcvrsa]

9 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

The font is Arial Regular and I just installed Affinity Designer. Do I have to set some stuff to use the Alt + 0149?

That seems odd. Arial definitely contains a glyph for that. You shouldn't have to set anything special, as the alt code functionality is part of Windows, not the Affinity suite.

[gcvrsa]

I just tested this on my system. I opened a new document in Designer V2, created a text frame, and typed Alt+0149, and got a bullet point. You can see the font is set by default to Arial Regular 12 pt. I have not changed any settings from the default installation.

For macOS users, I believe it's Option+8. I would have put this in a separate response, but the forum won't let me post any more today.

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by gcvrsa

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, gcvrsa said:

I opened a new document in Designer V2, created a text frame, and typed Alt+0149, and got a bullet point.

When you say you typed that do you mean you held down the alt/option key while typing +0149 or that you literally typed out the letters Alt followed by +149?

Either way, it does not work for me.

[v_kyr]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Either way, it does not work for me.

They are on Windows and usually one would use the AltGr key hold down and afterwards type the numerical keycode.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, v_kyr said:

They are on Windows and usually one would use the AltGr key hold down and afterwards type the numerical keycode.

OK, but how do you do it (enter a charcter code) on Macs?

[v_kyr]

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

OK, but how do you do it (enter a charcter code) on Macs?

On Macs you usually don't insert special chars that numerical way. - See also:

• How to Use Alt Codes

• How Unicode is supported in macOS

• ... etc.

[gotanidea]

15 minutes ago, gcvrsa said:

That seems odd. Arial definitely contains a glyph for that. You shouldn't have to set anything special, as the alt code functionality is part of Windows, not the Affinity suite.

Yes, it's weird because I have never installed Affinity Designer on my PC before. This is how it looks like on my PC, using both Artistic Text Tool and Frame text Tool:

https://ibb.co/3sxQkvk

I just made a bullet point in VectorStyler and Notepad++, so this problem is strange

[v_kyr]

4 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

Yes, it's weird because I have never installed Affinity Designer on my PC before. This is how it looks like on my PC, using both Artistic Text Tool and Frame text Tool:

https://ibb.co/3sxQkvk

I just made a bullet point in VectorStyler and Notepad++, so this problem is strange

Did you have the text tools correctly selected and also always an insertion cursor "|" shown (double click on frame text etc.) when performing the Alt-keycode insertion?

[gotanidea]

7 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Did you have the text tools correctly selected and also always an insertion cursor "|" shown (double click on frame text etc.) when performing the Alt-keycode insertion?

Yes, I did exactly that

[v_kyr]

And it doesn't work, strange!

Maybe you test with another font and some other glyph/sign alt keycode if it works at all for you. - If it does not work, use the Glyph Panel way I decribed above, drag the wanted bullet char from the Glyph panel and copy/paste it's selection from the text then always.

[gotanidea]

5 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

And it doesn't work, strange!

Maybe you test with another font and some other glyph/sign alt keycode if it works at all for you. - If it does not work, use the Glyph Panel way I decribed above, drag the wanted bullet char from the Glyph panel and copy/paste it's selection from the text then always.

I tested it using Bodoni MT, Book Antiqua and Times New Roman fonts. I still get the rectangle instead of a bullet point. Unfortunately, I would have to use Glyph Browser or just use VectorStyler if I don't make a book with Designer/ Publisher

[v_kyr]

7 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

I tested it using Bodoni MT, Book Antiqua and Times New Roman fonts. I still get the rectangle instead of a bullet point. Unfortunately, I would have to use Glyph Browser or just use VectorStyler if I don't make a book with Designer/ Publisher

Hmm, still strange, some other Affinity Windows user has to crosscheck here if it works for them or not. Since I'm on a Mac here I can't prove or verify this.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, v_kyr said:

On Macs you usually don't insert special chars that numerical way.

I thought that in one of the Mac Affinity apps (Publisher, maybe?) there was a way to enter a sequence of keystrokes to directly enter characters using their unicode(?) representations, but I can't remember exactly how that worked.

[laurent32]

54 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I thought that in one of the Mac Affinity apps (Publisher, maybe?) there was a way to enter a sequence of keystrokes to directly enter characters using their unicode(?) representations, but I can't remember exactly how that worked.

You select the Unicode Hex keyboard, and then you can type option-(unicode number)…

[R C-R]

9 hours ago, laurent32 said:

You select the Unicode Hex keyboard, and then you can type option-(unicode number)…

How do I select that keyboard in an Affinity app?

[laurent32]

29 minutes ago, R C-R said:

How do I select that keyboard in an Affinity app?

It's not in Affinity, it's in macOS :

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, laurent32 said:

It's not in Affinity, it's in macOS :

Thanks, but I am not asking about that. I am asking if there is a way in any of the Affinity apps to directly enter characters using their Unicode values.

[laurent32]

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Thanks, but I am not asking about that. I am asking if there is a way in any of the Affinity apps to directly enter characters using their Unicode values.

Once you have chosen that macOS Keyboard, you get a qwerty keyboard (that let you type as usual) AND the possibility to enter Unicodes with the option key.

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, laurent32 said:

Once you have chosen that macOS Keyboard, you get a qwerty keyboard (that let you type as usual) AND the possibility to enter Unicodes with the option key.

Again, this is not what I am asking about. If I remember correctly, there is a way in at least one of the Affinity apps (maybe Publisher?) to enter unicode values in a way similar to how this is done in Windows without enabling the macOS level Unicode Hex keyboard.