Ligatures missing

[lacerto]

I just had a closer look on Academico Italic (I have version 0.81 by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, OpenType PS flavor). It does use a kind of doubly encoded fi and fl ligatures, in standard places and custom, which seems to confuse Affinity apps -- but not e.g. CorelDRAW, or Adobe apps, when opening a PDF using them:

Times New Roman, e.g., does not do so:

Affinity apps do not have problems with ligatures in e.g. Times New Roman, but cannot interpret them in Academico font, no matter if the font has been embedded in full or using sub setting, and no matter if the export file is created by Affinity apps or other apps:

So, as it is, there does not seem to be other way to resolve the problem than changing the font, leaving "fi", "fl" etc. as non ligatures -- or manually replacing them in the layout. EDIT: ...or, letting the file pass through, but then you might have an issue with the color space, and inability to produce K100 black.

[GeirSol]

Thanks for checking!

17 hours ago, lacerto said:

EDIT: ...or, letting the file pass through, but then you might have an issue with the color space, and inability to produce K100 black.

Can you explain a little more about pdf passthrough and K100black

I'll use Fogra 39 CMYK I believe for export from Publisher

[lacerto]

8 hours ago, GeirSol said:

Can you explain a little more about pdf passthrough and K100black

I ran a test on Sibelius created PDF using one of the sample files and while the output is in pure RGB and its nominal DPI is 72, the output is so well structured that once you have the fonts installed, you should have no problems opening the PDF file and have full control of the score, editing it if needed, and adding whatever other content you wish to have in the publication, and create a good press-ready PDF output.

Basically you have the following options:

1. Creating an empty CMYK [or RGB] Publisher document and place the Sibelius created RGB PDF page by page to be passed through. Your output, however, will be RGB (black being RGB 0, 0, 0), which the printshop could easily convert to K100, but whether they do this, depends on the printshop. Most require CMYK output, and if so, you cannot use this method. Basically placing a PDF in passthrough mode is the safest method to have actual score flawlessly printed as Affinity apps will not interpret the content in any way. But there is this color mode issue, and possibly also the fact that you cannot edit content that is placed to be passed through, that make this choice unsuitable for your purposes.
2. Opening the Publisher created RGB PDF as a Grayscale document. The RGB black will be interpreted as Gray 0, and when you also export the document in Grayscale mode, the output will be DeviceGray (basically same as a CMYK file with output only on the K plate). The limitation with this choice is that you cannot have color content in the same publication. But when you open a PDF, the benefits are that you can edit the content as you wish, so you could e.g. fix those ligatures.
3. Opening the Publisher created RGB PDF as a CMYK document and assign it the printer required color profile (e.g. Coated Fogra 39). Your all black would initially be interpreted as RGB 0, 0, 0 (which is same as Gray 0 in Affinity apps), but you can fix this with two easy operations: select an object that has "black" fill, then choose Select > Select Same > Fill Color, and in the Color panel, make sure that you have Fill assignment active, then switch to Sliders mode and select CMYK as the color model and then set C, M, and Y to 0, and K to 100. Then select an object with black stroke, like any of the staff lines and choose Select > Select Same > Stroke Color, make sure that you have the Stroke assignment active, and set C, M and Y to 0 and K to 100. Now you have all objects in your document set in K100. UPDATE: Using this method would allow you to place any content at all freely and have full-fledged publication suitable for printing press, and also easily producible for digital purposes.
4. [UPDATE] Opening the Publisher created RGB document as RGB document if there are no needs for producing CMYK for printing press (but just produce digital media or print to desktop printers). If targeting to printing press and CMYK colors are required, using the Select Same command similarly as above but convert all RGB 0, 0, 0 fills and strokes to K100 would of course be available, but I do not think that there are any benefits of producing like this. 

Please note that in order to use the Select command in whole document scope, you need to have Publisher version 2.

Here are example files to play with:

Choir - Full Score.pdf -- Sibelius 7 created PDF export in RGB format

Choir - Full Score_gray8.afpub -- the RGB file opened in Gray/8 mode: RGB 0, 0, 0 black will be interpreted as Gray 0

Choir - Full Score_cmyk.afpub -- the RGB file opened in CMYK/8 mode, and the RGB/Gray black is replaced with CMYK black (C0M0Y0K100).

Choir - Full Score_gray8_press.pdf -- DeviceGray output

Choir - Full Score_cmyk_press.pdf -- DeviceCMYK output

 

Btw, as for the ligature issue, the font is really part of the problem, but the problem might also be related to the way you initially created those ligatures. At least Sibelius version 7 cannot automatically create ligatures, even standard ones, like "fi" and "fl", so to have them you would need to replace regular "fi" and "fl" combinations with actual ligature glyphs (e.g. when importing lyrics from a text file). This is not the "correct "way to apply ligatures: it should be done by ligature formatting so basically "fi" and "fl" are used as true two-letter combinations but just marked as ligatures so that they get rendered with ligature glyphs in apps that support this. When using hard coded glyphs, instead, the kinds of problems you have now faced when editing the PDF content, are common. EDIT: Later versions of Sibelius might support ligature formatting and also advanced OpenType features to allow more sophisticated creation of scores, so what is mentioned above might not apply when using current versions.

UPDATE: I forgot to add as a conclusion that IMO Affinity Publisher does an excellent job in opening and processing Sibelius created scores. Now that version 2 has the powerful global "Select Same" command, problems related to color conversions are no longer critical and it is a quick job to make the required changes. It would require a more complex score and an expert knowing well the source material to be able to tell whether there are any serious rendering errors, but opening Sibelius score PDFs in Publisher at least appears to work very well.

[GeirSol]

21 hours ago, lacerto said:

I ran a test on Sibelius created PDF ...

Thanks a lot! That seems like detailed expert-help to me.
My output is for print press. I'm not sure how they handle RGB and grey, but I'm planning on using colors (but not entirely sure).
I'll get everything looking as I want it, then take the print-details from there.
I'll be book btw (hoping that is not a problem)

[GeirSol]

Update: Place does not show the ligatures correct either.
It gives the same errors.

[GeirSol]

And there are other problems:
(For those who don't know, that tenor-clef is not right)

For both pdf-import and place.

[GeirSol]

Conclusion: Affinity Publisher seems useless to me at the moment for this purpose.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, GeirSol said:

Update: Place does not show the ligatures correct either.
It gives the same errors.

Did you use Passthrough or Interpret?

[lacerto]

Whenever you place a PDF file to be passed through, all embedded fonts should show correctly in exported PDF. They basically cannot show incorrectly because the content has not been interpreted, so a replaced glyph indicates that a placed file has been placed for interpretation, or that it has been opened for editing. (EDIT: In contrast, when passing through fails, the exported file is typically rasterized, but the glyphs still show correctly rendered, even if no longer in text/vector format.)

When a PDF has been placed to be interpreted, or when a PDF is opened for editing, all fonts that the document uses, must be installed and they need to be mapped correctly. In case of having opened a PDF document for editing, you should be able to check from Window > Font Manager if this is so.

I tested clef symbols with Sibelius 7 and both passthrough and interpretation/opening work properly. If you do not have Sibelius installed on the same computer where you have Affinity apps installed, please note that Opus alone (the default Music font of Sibelius) consists of 18 styles, so make sure that all styles have been installed if you are going to open or interpret your Sibelius scores.

Choir - Full Score_page1_from_opened_gray.pdf

Choir - Full Score_page1_from_placed_rgb.pdf

[GeirSol]

16 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Did you use Passthrough or Interpret?

Place is passthrough if I understand right.
Is there an option when using place?

[lacerto]

18 minutes ago, GeirSol said:

Place is passthrough if I understand right.
Is there an option when using place?

The control (a dropdown listbox) for Passthrough options is shown in my screenshot above, framed in red. The shown drop-down control, visible when you have the Move Tool active and a placed PDF file selected, has options Passthrough and Interpret. The default is "Passthrough", but I think that the last used option is remembered at least for the document under processing so it is best to double check.

[GeirSol]

Here is a test-file with the problematic fonts, from Sibelis
and then imported and exported from Affinity publisher (interpret)

Sibelius 2022.12
Affinity Publisher v.2.0.4

Publisher test_APub_interpret.pdf Publisher test.pdf

[GeirSol]

16 hours ago, lacerto said:

Whenever you place a PDF file to be passed through, all embedded fonts should show correctly in exported PDF.

 

47 minutes ago, lacerto said:

The control (a dropdown listbox) for Passthrough options is shown in my screenshot above, framed in red. The shown drop-down control, visible when you have the Move Tool active and a placed PDF file selected, has options Passthrough and Interpret. The default is "Passthrough", but I think that the last used option is remembered at least for the document under processing so it is best to double check.

Thanks! Sorry for not reading thorough.
I can't see that line with "Pdf passthrough". How to I display it?

Edit: Found it. Deselect, then select page with box.

[GeirSol]

Correction:
There was some error in my source-file in Sibelius.
That's the clef-error and a text-error.
I don't know when that happened. I'm sorry for any confusion.

It does seem that passthrough work as you've said.
Although, if I happen to double-click on any content, things are going into interpret, and error comes.

Ok, things might be doable in Publisher.