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]

Works on my Windows 11 Pro and Affinity apps v1 and v2 (including Designer), similarly as when using e.g. VectorStyler. The numbers must of course be typed by using the numeric keypad, but this does not seem to be the issue since this works for OP with other apps. NumPad + 7 works, too (though I do not know if this is somehow OS specific). 

[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.