xiphumor Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 I'm typing in TW Cen MT in Affinity Publisher 2 on Windows, and I'd like to type the character a with a macron (ā), but the font doesn't include that character. However, it does include the macron as a separate character (¯). Is there any way I can combine a with ¯ by messing with the font settings? Alternatively, is there any way to add new glyphs to a font? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarinC Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 (edited) Use the Glyph browser (Window>text>) Find the character (for your font) with the macron and double click on it. It will appear where your cursor is. Edited March 13 by KarinC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hangman Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 28 minutes ago, KarinC said: Use the Glyph browser (Window>text>) Find the character (for your font) with the macron and double click on it. It will appear where your cursor is. a with a macron (ā) is not available for that font, they only exist as independent glyphs... Quote Affinity Designer 2.4.2 | Affinity Photo 2.4.2 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.2 Affinity Designer Beta 2.5.0 (2415) | Affinity Photo Beta 2.5.0 (2415) | Affinity Publisher Beta 2.5.0 (2415) Affinity Designer 1.7.3 | Affinity Photo 1.7.3 | Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 MacBook Pro 16GB, macOS Monterey 12.7.4, Magic Mouse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 If the font doesn't have the character with the macron, sometimes you can type the standard character followed by a combining macron, U+0304, which might be available in the font. For TW Cen MT that doesn't help, either. You might need to choose a different font, or choose one that is close, and use that for the character instead. 1 hour ago, xiphumor said: Alternatively, is there any way to add new glyphs to a font? Yes, if you have a font-editing application you can physically add new characters/glyphs to the font. Whether you can do that legally would be a different question, and would depend on the license you own for the font. And then, if you do add it, whether it will work properly for a different user who doesn't have your modified font is still another question. Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @xiphumor. Try these steps: 1. Type the vowel first, followed by the macron. (It didn't seem to work the other way around when I tried it here.) 2. Place the cursor between the two characters and set the kerning value to a large negative number: -440‰ seems to work well for Tw Cen MT. 3. Place the cursor between the macron and the next character and set a positive kerning value: I used +100‰ here. walt.farrell 1 Quote Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarinC Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 12 minutes ago, Hangman said: a with a macron (ā) is not available for that font, they only exist as independent glyphs... I see that now. Old eyes is the excuse... Hangman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenmcd Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 TW Cen MT is "inspired" by Futura. So any more extensive Futura family will have those characters. Also any alternatives to Futura - search for "Futura alternatives" Alfred 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Overington Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 1 hour ago, Alfred said: Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @xiphumor. Try these steps: 1. Type the vowel first, followed by the macron. (It didn't seem to work the other way around when I tried it here.) That's right, always put the letter first, then the combining diacritical mark. Just a thought, I know that the character that looks something like a circumflex accent that is on the same keyboard key as a figure 6 on at least the English keyboard is not the combining circumflex. I am not immediately knowing whether there is or is not some character that might look like a combining macron but is not. The reason I mention this is that I think that the "going rate" for these combining diacritical marks is that they have zero advance width in the font so that they "have a go" at producing a reasonable attempt at an accented character straight off, though unless it is a monospaced font, then results can be variable, from good through reasonable to poor, though nevertheless conveying meaning. So the result that @Alfred got first seems strange to me if that is the combining macron. There is a collection of Combining Diacritical Marks as they are called. https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0300.pdf William Quote Until December 2022, using a Lenovo laptop running Windows 10 in England. From January 2023, using an HP laptop running Windows 11 in England. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenmcd Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 1 hour ago, William Overington said: So the result that @Alfred got first seems strange to me if that is the combining macron. That is not a combining macron (it is the legacy spacing version). The font does not have the combining macron character. That is the problem. Alfred and William Overington 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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