Opening EPS files with embedded fonts

[Simon Scheiwiller]

Hello

Sorry if that was asked before, I searched the forum and didn't find anything helpful.

I have an EPS file which uses Arial Narrow. I also have the font installed on my computer. I can import the file into Photoshop or Indesign and it shows the correct font. If I import it in Affinity, it's displayed with a serif font, but strangely, the numbers are not actual characters where I could change the font, but they are curves already (with the serif font that isn't original).

Can someone please help me?

ISMN EPS Arial Narrow.eps

[loukash]

15 minutes ago, Simon Scheiwiller said:

If I import it in Affinity, it's displayed with a serif font, but strangely, the numbers are not actual characters where I could change the font, but they are curves already (with the serif font that isn't original).

Affinity cannot interpret embedded fonts in EPS. You may want to convert it to PDF first.
Also, on MacOS Ventura and above, you can't open PS/EPS with the Preview.app anymore (thanks, Apple, for frickin' nothing!). But there's e.g. the free PDF reader Skim that still can, then simply save as PDF.

[Heinz Stöffler]

Anders als ADOBE Illustrator, scheint Affinity Designer beim Format EPS die Option "Schrift einbetten" nicht zu unterstützen; wird einfach in Pfade umgewandelt (leider!)

[Simon Scheiwiller]

Ok, we'll try with SVG, which kind of works. But then Arial Narrow isn't recognized by Designer, which is another story.

[v_kyr]

See related to SVG …

• https://vecta.io/blog/using-fonts-in-svg

… though the Affinity SVG generator & parser won‘t support everything SVG can deal with here.
 

If you don‘t have to change the text and font type often on occasion, you can also convert text to curves instead, before saving the whole then as SVG.

 

[Simon Scheiwiller]

17 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

See related to SVG …

• https://vecta.io/blog/using-fonts-in-svg

… though the Affinity SVG generator & parser won‘t support everything SVG can deal with here.
 

If you don‘t have to change the text and font type often on occasion, you can also convert text to curves instead, before saving the whole then as SVG.

 

This should not be the problem, the SVG is quite straightforward and just includes Arial Narrow, which exists on the computer. But it isn't recognized in Affinity. Affinity has all Arial families as one family "Arial", and Narrow as a variant of that.

SVG_Test-Barcode.svg

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Simon Scheiwiller said:

Arial Narrow, which exists on the computer. But it isn't recognized in Affinity. Affinity has all Arial families as one family "Arial", and Narrow as a variant of that.

That sounds like you may have conflicting fonts installed, or possibly a Variable font.

Can you give us more information about the specific Arial font files you have installed?

[Simon Scheiwiller]

37 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

That sounds like you may have conflicting fonts installed, or possibly a Variable font.

Can you give us more information about the specific Arial font files you have installed?

It's this:

[walt.farrell]

Thanks, but what other Arial fonts do you have, too? And we're did you get that one, and the others?

[Simon Scheiwiller]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks, but what other Arial fonts do you have, too? And we're did you get that one, and the others?

I also have Arial 7.00 (Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold italic), Black 5.23, and also the other Arial Narrow styles (Bold, Italic, Bold italic). They are on my computer in the office, I didn't install these separately. These are probably the ones that were included with MS Office 2013.

[kenmcd]

IIRC there are two different versions of Arial Narrow - one which has a separate typographic family and one which is in the same Arial typographic family. Think the first one was on the Mac. This may be causing a font mis-match.

On my phone at the moment, but will check your EPS and SVG files in about an hour - along with the different versions of the Arial Narrow fonts.

[kenmcd]

OK. Think I see what is happening.

The EPS has it embedded as ArialNarrow - the PostScript Name (like in a PDF).

The SVG has it embedded as Arial Narrow

Affinity Designer lists the fonts by typographic family.

On Mac the typographic family for the narrow fonts is Arial Narrow

On Windows the typographic family for the narrow fonts is Arial
and then the narrow fonts are additional typographic styles.

Highlight the text in the SVG, then
Select Arial as the Font Family, and then Narrow as the Font Style.

That should work.

Affinity font matching could be a lot smarter and avoid stuff like this.