Fonts from package are not activated

[jog]

The dialog looks correct, but the fonts don't appear in Publisher. It works when I manually install the fonts into /User/Library/Fonts. I tried a few different fonts, so the problem isn't font-specific. Also, the same fonts do package and open perfectly in InDesign.

Publisher 2.3.1, macOS 14.3.1

[kenmcd]

Did the correct fonts end up in the package?

The Package Fonts list only shows the family name, not the styles.
So it appears to be confused about the names at some point.
Confused when putting the fonts into the package? or
Confused when trying to get the fonts from the package?

The GT America super-family has a particular names/weights/styles configuration that may be confusing Affinity.
One of the old Bebas Neue families has a similar structure and it has been the source of some other fonts confusion issues.
And it only has five fonts, not 84.

What are the six fonts/styles you actually used?
Maybe I can try it here.
Do you have all 84 fonts installed on the source machine?

[Alfred]

5 hours ago, kenmcd said:

And it only has five fonts, not 84.

I presume that was a typo. GT America has six subfamilies (Compressed, Condensed, Standard, Extended, Expanded, and Mono) with fourteen styles in each — seven roman and seven italic — for a total of 84. I’m guessing that the six GT America entries in the screenshot that @jog posted comprise one for each subfamily.

[Dan C]

Hi @jog,

Thanks for your report!

Can you please expand on the behaviour you're describing when you say; "the fonts don't appear in Publisher"?

I ask as when opening a .afpackage file, fonts are only temporarily 'installed' for use in the current document session, allowing a user to export/print the document with these fonts used.

As covered by our helpfile here;

Quote

If such a font is included in the package, tick the checkbox in its Install column to make it available only to Affinity Publisher and only for the current session. This enables the recipient to export and print the document as is.

If the document needs to be edited and fonts not installed on the current device are included in the package's Fonts folder, use your operating system's built-in mechanism or a third-party tool to install the fonts.

Many thanks in advance

[walt.farrell]

@Dan C: But editing the document works, during that session. And the Help says that one purpose is to share with a collaborator for editing: https://affinity.help/publisher2/en-US.lproj/pages/Publishing/aboutPackaging.html

And there are functions now to re-Save an edited Package file. Why would that function exist if the only reason for the Package support was Export/Print?  https://affinity.help/publisher2/en-US.lproj/pages/Publishing/resavingPackages.html

[Dan C]

Thanks Walt, perhaps myself (and the help) could have been clearer here - in terms of 'editing' I'm referring to new, or otherwise opened documents within Affinity outside of the .afpackage document.

If the font is present when opening the .afpackage, that font will be made available within that document, for as long as it remains open within the app (ie the font is temporarily installed, for this document only).

If you were to open an .afpackage, then open or create a new file separately, I don't believe fonts that were installed through the opening of the afpackage should be available within these separate documents - ie for 'editing' - however as above any present fonts would remain useable for the opened .afpackage document.

It's unclear from the users original post their expectations of the font/package process, so I was trying to make this clearer - but in hindsight I believe my initial reply was somewhat misleading, my apologies!

[kenmcd]

8 hours ago, Alfred said:

I presume that was a typo. GT America has six subfamilies (Compressed, Condensed, Standard, Extended, Expanded, and Mono) with fourteen styles in each — seven roman and seven italic — for a total of 84. I’m guessing that the six GT America entries in the screenshot that @jog posted comprise one for each subfamily.

Bebas Neue only has five.

GT America has 84.

But they both have a similar way of configuring styles.

I assume the six in the screenshot are the six separate styles used in the document - six styles of those 84 styles. Do not see how they could be sub-families

[Alfred]

51 minutes ago, kenmcd said:

I assume the six in the screenshot are the six separate styles used in the document - six styles of those 84 styles. Do not see how they could be sub-families

On reflection, I also don’t see how they could be subfamilies, so I’m sure you’re right.

Thanks for pointing out that your reference to five fonts related not to GT America but rather to one of the old Bebas Neue families. I don’t know how I missed that!

[jog]

Thanks for the replies so far – I'll clarify:

Expected behavior
Document opens and renders with the correct fonts within the package, fonts appear in font menu

Actual behavior
Document opens and renders with a substitute/wrong font, fonts don't appear in font menu

In the meantime I have tried this on other systems and it works just as expected there, which means that the issue above only occurs on one of three machines. Clearing the font cache didn't help, I'll investigate further and will report back here. I suspect a conflict with the font managers.

Edited February 17 by jog

[jog]

 

Tried a few things (safe mode boot, new user) but couldn't get it to work. There is a dialog I get that is not there on the working systems:

Any ideas?

[Dan C]

Thanks for letting us know @jog, that's certainly a strange message appearing on the toast that I haven't encountered before.

Can you please upload a copy of your full package folder to the below link for me, so that we can investigate further?

https://www.dropbox.com/request/hFyXn0UMwPAU3Pal44O1

Once uploaded, please reply here to let me know.

Can you also please outline any potential differences between the 'working' system and the system providing this toast message?

Many thanks in advance!

[jog]

Thanks Dan – uploaded. I can't think of any differences besides platform architecture (working systems are Intel, non-working is M1) and installed third party software (working systems have fresh blank OS installations, the non-working Mac is my main machine with all kinds of software including Adobe Creative Cloud and various font managers).

[jog]

Any news?

[Dan C]

My sincerest apologies for the delayed response here - I cannot be certain for the exact reason but it appears as though I missed the notification for your original reply here. This is my mistake and can sometimes occur during busy periods, though I will certainly work to ensure this does not happen again in the future.

I've opened the .afpackage with your fonts/images provided in 2.4.1 on both macOS and Windows - on both platforms the document was opened and displayed as expected, with all fonts showing correctly within the Font Manager and no 'Open Document Package' toast is shown, as you've screenshotted above.

I understand this is also working correctly on one device for you, but not on another. As below are you able to confirm any clear differences between these systems that may help us to identify the cause of this? For example does the OS version differ between devices, do you already have these fonts installed on your device where this fails?

On 2/22/2024 at 1:16 PM, Dan C said:

Can you also please outline any potential differences between the 'working' system and the system providing this toast message?

Thanks for your continued patience here