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Help with ancient font please


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The attached image is from a project I created a couple years ago using version 1 of Affinity. The font is Noto Sans Phoenician.

I have this font installed on my Mac, and it works fine. In Apple Pages, for example, I can see the font from the drop-down list, select it, then copy-and-paste in some Phoenician text from the internet, and it displays correctly.

In Affinity Designer 2, however, the font does not appear in the drop-down font list. And if I copy-and-paste some Phoenician text into a text frame or into an artistic text box, it just appears as a series of rectangles.

Any thoughts how I can get Affinity 2 to recognize the font? Thx.

FYI that when I use File > Validate File in Apple's Font Book app to validate the font, everything looks fine. No errors appear.

Screenshot 2023-03-25 at 14.38.01.png

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Did you do the earlier work on the same computer?

Do you still have Designer V1 installed there, to see if the font still works in that version? If not, you might install it so you can try it again. Affinity does not support all fonts, but as far as I know, any that worked in V1 should work in V2 (except for the ones that Apple has disabled).

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.6.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1

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Thank you for replying. Here is what I know (or think I know).

1. In Mac Finder, I can highlight the original Affinity Designer V1 file (image attached). In the thumbnail, I can see the correct Phoenician font. The 2020 creation date of the file affirms that I was using a pre V2 version of Affinity.

2. If I open the original Affinity V1 file using Affinity V2, however, the Phoenician font is replaced by rectangles.

3. I am using the same Mac from 2020 and, as mentioned above, the Noto Sans Phoenician font works fine in Apple Pages and Apple Numbers. I am, however, now using macOS Ventura. I do not recall which macOS I was using back in 2020. It would have been whatever was current at that time.

4. I also use Scrivener a lot, and the Noto Sans Phoenician font works there as well. Noto Sans Phoenician also appears in the drop-down font list in Scrivener, , so it's not a "works only in Apple software" thing.

5. I no longer have Affinity Designer V1. I am happy to re-download it and do further testing, but I don't know how to re-download it. I believe I originally purchased V1 via the Apple App Store.

Any suggestions?

Screenshot 2023-03-25 at 15.17.38.png

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To LondonSquirrel. Thank you for responding, I do not recall where I originally got the Noto Sans Phoenician font. I'll go to Google and download the version you mention. Just to ensure I'm not doing something dumb, how did you type the glyphs in Affinity V2? Through ligatures?

Also, in your Affinity V2, does Noto Sans Phoenician appear in the drop-down font list?

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26 minutes ago, pomme27 said:

5. I no longer have Affinity Designer V1. I am happy to re-download it and do further testing, but I don't know how to re-download it. I believe I originally purchased V1 via the Apple App Store.

It will be in the list of Purchased applications in your Mac App Store account.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.6.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1

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8 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

that's the date of the licence

Yes, the date of the SIL OFL version 1.1 is 2007, but the font itself is copyright 2012.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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OK, I downloaded Affinity Designer V1, then re-opened the original V1 design file. The Noto Sans Phoenician font is not working there either (although it clearly did at some point in the past, or I could not have produced the design).

In V2, in the View > Text > Character panel, I selected Missing Fonts. Per the attached image, it looks like Affinity (on my Mac) is not finding the font, even though it is installed on my Mac via Font Book, and even though it works fine in other apps. Not sure where to go next on this. I'll have to give it some thought.

All further advice is welcome.

FYI that I am not able to share the original file, as it contains some confidential information.

Screenshot 2023-03-25 at 16.35.58.png

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2 hours ago, pomme27 said:

All further advice is welcome.

Noto Sans Phoenician is now one of the Apple "Document-support fonts" which they block.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213266#document
It is beyond stupid to block the name of a free open source font.

Below is v2.001 (which also has Latin characters now) which I have renamed
to: PhoenicianAF-Regular.
It should work fine now, but let me know if you have any issues.

PhoenicianAF-Regular.v2.001.zip

 

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Wow. You folks are great. All of you. I'm back in business now thanks to the advice and fonts provided. I really appreciate it.

Bottom line to all this, per the above: The font I was using appears to have been deprecated in macOS Ventura, in such a way that even though I had used it in an Affinity V1 design, it no longer is consistently recognized under macOS Ventura. The PhoenicianAF-Regular font fills the void nicely.

Thanks again!

 

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12 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

It seems to be another reason not to use Apple fonts for anything.

How do you identify them? Here it appears to be not obvious for various fonts, Athelas for instance (which Apple reported as one of the blocked "Document Fonts").
("Hersteller" -> manufacturer)

975248940_fontssuitcaseathelasApple.thumb.jpg.5a5ed60bd792299e1d141685542ecafe.jpg

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Even though Apple no longer supports Athelas a user cannot buy the commercial version to replace the fonts because the fonts names are the same. So Apple is blocking users from using their own purchased fonts.

And blocking free OFL licensed fonts, that is some stunningly arrogant BS.

Reminds me of that old joke when the phone company was a monopoly...

"We don't care because we don't have to."

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