Designer | Kerning is wrong with some fonts

[GenewalDesign]

I compared the kerning of some fonts between Designer and Inkscape, and the difference is huge.

Here are my 3 fonts inside inkscape, typed as is :

And here are the same 3 fonts, same text, inside Designer.

Space between letters is way too important, but the one for "M" letters really stands out. I don't understand why Inkscape kerning is well balanced, and Designer... well, is totally wrong.

Maybe because of my fonts ?

[Affinityconfusesme]

are these variable fonts?

 

[GenewalDesign]

4 minutes ago, tzvi20 said:

are these variable fonts?

 

No. Very classic fonts, packed as .otf.

[walt.farrell]

Are they fonts you can share, or are they commercial fonts you had to pay for?

[GenewalDesign]

13 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Are they fonts you can share, or are they commercial fonts you had to pay for?

It's commercial fonts.

KC Radio Sans
KC Leisure Park
KC Kato Bubble

However, it seems Leisure Park is actually free. https://www.kernclub.com/shop/leisure-park-font

[Dan C]

Thanks for your report and sorry to hear you're having trouble!

51 minutes ago, GenewalDesign said:

However, it seems Leisure Park is actually free. https://www.kernclub.com/shop/leisure-park-font

Unfortunately Chrome has actually blocked the .ZIP download, both from the site directly and through the order email in Gmail for security reasons.

Are you able to upload a copy of the .otf font file (not the zipped version) to the below link for me? I appreciate you cannot provide the other commercial font files.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/rpohKGpG6t3NAlH5ozx2

Once uploaded, please let me know 

[GenewalDesign]

It's uploaded! I included the 3 styles to be sure you can test it totally.

[GenewalDesign]

@Dan C I just opened my file in the macOS version of AD and the tracking is good. It must be a bug from the Windows version of AD, then.

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delayed response - thanks for the files and further testing conducted!

On 8/11/2023 at 7:57 AM, GenewalDesign said:

I just opened my file in the macOS version of AD and the tracking is good. It must be a bug from the Windows version of AD, then

I can confirm I'm seeing the same behaviour and therefore I'm logging this as a bug with our developers now.

I hope this helps

[GenewalDesign]

19 hours ago, Dan C said:

Apologies for the delayed response - thanks for the files and further testing conducted!

I can confirm I'm seeing the same behaviour and therefore I'm logging this as a bug with our developers now.

I hope this helps

Thanks Dan! I hope the hotfix will come out quickly.

[GenewalDesign]

I know that my bug is not a critical issue, but I wasn't expecting so much of a wait 😅

[Dan C]

Sorry to hear this issue has not yet been resolved @GenewalDesign!

I will be sure to bump/update this issue with our development team now, to bring it to their attention once again.

I hope this helps!

[kenmcd]

@Dan C 

This appears to be the same issue as AF-1541.
See: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/195968-font-rendered-and-exported-differently/

Another case of a font created with Fontself Maker with excessive multi-mapping.
The problems with excessive multi-mapping are discussed in the above thread.

So basically the problem is in the fonts.
Yes, some other applications may handle this, but creating fonts like this is just dumb.
Which is why Adobe strongly discourages it, and Google Fonts outright prohibits it.

 

[Alfred]

16 minutes ago, kenmcd said:

This appears to be the same issue as AF-1541.

This issue is also tagged as AF-1541:

Default horizontal spacing on certain fonts WAY off.

[GenewalDesign]

20 minutes ago, kenmcd said:

@Dan C 

This appears to be the same issue as AF-1541.
See: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/195968-font-rendered-and-exported-differently/

Another case of a font created with Fontself Maker with excessive multi-mapping.
The problems with excessive multi-mapping are discussed in the above thread.

So basically the problem is in the fonts.
Yes, some other applications may handle this, but creating fonts like this is just dumb.
Which is why Adobe strongly discourages it, and Google Fonts outright prohibits it.

 

But why this problem is only in Windows and not in MacOS?

[kenmcd]

19 minutes ago, Alfred said:

This issue is also tagged as AF-1541:

Default horizontal spacing on certain fonts WAY off.

Probably the same issue (excessive multi-mapping).
But I never did get a look at that particular font.
It is mentioned that it is "an all caps font" so it could have the same multi-mapping to the lowercase characters like these ones.

I looked at the three KC Leisure Park fonts, and many others from the same developer in a pack of their "free" fonts (61 fonts).
Wadda mess.
Does the same thing as the fonts in the other thread I linked to - when butchering his fonts to make the free versions, he multi-maps all the glyphs he has removed to the base character.
So Aacute is mapped to A, and Agrave is mapped to A, etc., etc.
Sleazy.
And dumb.

 

[Alfred]

40 minutes ago, GenewalDesign said:

But why this problem is only in Windows and not in MacOS?

As @kenmcd indicated here, support for multi-mapped glyphs varies from one OS to the next.

[kenmcd]

45 minutes ago, GenewalDesign said:

But why this problem is only in Windows and not in MacOS?

For me - don't know, don't care. The fonts are purposely broken junk.

You should read through the longer explanation posts in the linked thread.
Different applications and different operating systems have different text shapers, etc.

Given the edge case here - of purposely broken multi-mapped demo fonts - I doubt the Affinity developers would prioritize this issue over many other far more important issues.
Would be surprised if this gets "fixed" any time soon, if ever.

[Dan C]

14 hours ago, kenmcd said:

@Dan C 

This appears to be the same issue as AF-1541.
See: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/195968-font-rendered-and-exported-differently/

Thanks for letting me know - I agree these certainly appear to be similar issues under different reports, I'll get these linked together internally now for our development team.

Unfortunately I'm not personally well-versed enough in font metrics to be certain if this is something that our team can fix, though I am sure if we can improve the way these fonts are handled in Affinity on Windows, our team will be happy to implement said improvements to the app

[shadanan]

I believe I am experiencing the exact same issue. To avoid duplicating bug reports, I'm going to add my two cents here. Using the Nunito Black font, the default kerning looks off:

Notice how the "r" bleeds into the "l". If I type this text in to literally any other app, Google Docs, Pixelmator, Final Cut Pro, it looks like this:

I've attached the afdesign file in case that helps.

cipherly.afdesign

System:

• Affinity Designer 2 2.4.2
• MacOS 14.4.1
• Apple M1 Max 64 GB

[kenmcd]

48 minutes ago, shadanan said:

I believe I am experiencing the exact same issue. To avoid duplicating bug reports, I'm going to add my two cents here. Using the Nunito Black font, the default kerning looks off:

Notice how the "r" bleeds into the "l". If I type this text in to literally any other app, Google Docs, Pixelmator, Final Cut Pro, it looks like this:

I've attached the afdesign file in case that helps.

cipherly.afdesign

System:

• Affinity Designer 2 2.4.2
• MacOS 14.4.1
• Apple M1 Max 64 GB

Different issue.

In the image below, your doc opened in Designer 2.4.1 on Windows 10.
Looks fine here.
Do you also have the variable fonts installed?
If you do, un-install them.
Cannot have statics and variables from GF installed at the same time.

 

 

[shadanan]

Thanks. Your suggestion worked. I was able to fix the issue by uninstalling the variable font Nunito-VariableFont_wght.ttf and installing the static font Nunito-Black.ttf instead.