Superscript not working

[nomi02118]

I recently had to change some test on an old poster that used subscript. It looked and worked fine in the poster until I modified the text. Then the superscript would not work at all. I am wondering if this is a common problem. I had the same issue in the beta version. The font was Helvetica Neue with I use all the time so I don't think the font is the problem. 

[walt.farrell]

The Affinity applications can produce: 

1. True super- and subscripts using the Typography options in the Character panel (or a Text Style). Or 

2. Fake versions using the Positioning and Transform options, also in the Character panel or Text Style. 

Approach #1 works only for characters which are provided by the font, and most fonts provide only a few true super- and subscripts glyphs. For other characters you need to use approach #2. 

I don't know which approach you've tried, nor which characters you're trying to use. Nor do I know which true ones your font provides. 

But perhaps this will give you some hints to solve your problem, or some ideas about further information to provide

 

[kenmcd]

9 hours ago, nomi02118 said:

The font was Helvetica Neue with I use all the time so I don't think the font is the problem. 

The version of Helvetica Neue which comes with macOS uses the non-standard Apple morx table for font features.
Affinity applications only support standard OpenType font features.
So if that is the font(s) you are using it is not going to work.

In that case you can follow Walts suggestion regarding using "fake" superscripts.

Or get a real OpenType version of Helvetica with up-to-date features.
The old Neue LT Std only has 1,2,3 - and I think that is the same in the old LT Pro.
Helvetica Neue LT W1G, Helvetica Neue World, and Helvetica Now all have more complete sets of real OpenType superscripts.

[nomi02118]

Thing is, it had superscript for this font pre V2. What I did was highlight the superscript there already and typed in the new text and it worked. Clicking the superscript button didn’t. I will check out which version of the font I am using since it probably is the one that Apple provided. Weird that there was no problem last year using the same font though! 

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, nomi02118 said:

Weird that there was no problem last year using the same font though!

What characters were used before, and now?

[nomi02118]

19 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

What characters were used before, and now?

I changed nd (2nd) to st (1st). Seemed weird it was fine when I opened the old file. 

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, nomi02118 said:

I changed nd (2nd) to st (1st). Seemed weird it was fine when I opened the old file. 

Hi Nomi, I just tested Helvetica Neue in v1 and v2 and it definitely does have have superscripted ordinals in v1. I believe that you'll find when it worked for you that you were typing 1st and Affinity was auto-correcting to superscript which is a fake superscript. Auto Correct uses Character > Positioning & Transform > Superscript:

As Ken has pointed out, Helvetica Neue lacks the OpenType superscripts that Affinity uses.

[nomi02118]

That explains a lot! Particularly why it worked before and not now. I will have to keep this in mind as the font is the primary one for one of my bigger clients now. They wanted everything in Baskerville for the previous 17 years so this will likely be what they keep for a while. 
 

merci! 

[kenmcd]

I checked the font again and the Unicode superscripts are there for 0-9.
So another alternative is to enter them with Unicode or the Glyph Browser.
BUT, the fonts oddly have 1,2,3 lower than 0,4-9.
It is like they kept the old 1,2,3 glyphs from the old Type 1 conversion - they are too low - and then they added the 0,4-9 at the correct height.

And the different fonts are not the same.
The Regular and Bold are as I described above.
But some of the other weights are correctly all the same height.
Take a look for yourself.
These are the basic Unicode superscripts:

sups u ⁰¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹⁺⁻⁼⁽⁾ⁿ 

So paste that into a doc, highlight it, and then rollover the font styles and watch.

I checked the fonts again because I was going to suggest entering the sups directly as an option.
But these fonts are going to be a problem because they are not all the same (and not standard OpenType).

Since this is for a big, long-term client you really need to get better versions of the fonts.
Will make your life easier in the long run.

 

[nomi02118]

For the few times I need superscript it’s not a problem for now. I also have been looking through font that are compatible with the desktop and the iPad so that match up when I work away from the studio. It’s a slow process but in the end I will be much more flexible where I can work.