No Hyphenation in Small Caps

[Interior Book Design]

Hi everyone,

I've encountered a problem in both Affinity Publisher 1 and 2 that affects text formatting, particularly hyphenation in Small Caps. Here's a brief breakdown, see my image:

1. Normal Hyphenation: Works fine with standard text formatting.
2. All Caps Hyphenation: Hyphenation also functions correctly with text in All Caps.
3. Small Caps Hyphenation: When applying Small Caps, the automatic hyphenation is ignored, leading to awkward spacing and visually unappealing text alignment in the document.

This issue persists regardless of whether direct formatting or a character style is applied. Given that Small Caps is a common format used in novels and professional books, the lack of proper hyphenation significantly impacts the readability and aesthetic of the text.

I have attached a graphic illustrating these points, showing the normal text (1), All Caps with working hyphenation (2), and Small Caps where the hyphenation fails (2), resulting in large gaps.

Could anyone provide insights or a workaround for this issue? Thanks for your help!

[MikeTO]

Hi, I'm unable to duplicate an issue with German hyphenation and small caps. Can you please open this test document and see if the text hyphenates as I've shown here?

Are you able to share a sample of your document for testing?

small caps.afpub

[Interior Book Design]

No, it does not. It just breaks without hyphen. I'm preparing another document.

 

[Interior Book Design]

And here comes my file. The language does not seem to matter.

small_caps_DE.afpub

[MikeTO]

I tested your file with 2.4.2 and it hyphenates correctly for me. I also made an identical document in 1.10 which worked correctly. Are you using macOS or Windows? I'm on macOS so I'm wondering whether this is a Windows-specific issue, although that seems unlikely.

 

 

[Interior Book Design]

Okay, I'm using Windows. I haven't tested it on MacOS, though. Update: Okay, it works on macOS. So, this is a Windows-related bug.

Edited May 16, 2024 by Interior Book Design
New information

[walt.farrell]

Works fine for me on Windows using 2.5.0.2449 Beta, but fails using 2.4.2.2371.

[joe_l]

8 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Works fine for me on Windows using 2.5.0.2449 Beta, but fails using 2.4.2.2371.

Fails for me in both versions in German. A workaround: Mark the word SCHNELLHILFMITTEL and turn off Spelling in the Language section of the Character panel. Maybe the OP wants to create a Character style for this word.

EDIT: What happens here? I turn off the spelling for a word and it changes its appearance? See image. Above no Spelling and below with Spelling.

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, joe_l said:

Fails for me in both versions in German.

You're right. I hadn't noticed that spelling and hyphenation were set to English for the Small-Caps example in the user's document. When I set that one to German it fails in both Beta and Retail.

[MikeTO]

34 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You're right. I hadn't noticed that spelling and hyphenation were set to English for the Small-Caps example in the user's document. When I set that one to German it fails in both Beta and Retail.

? Joe's sample doc has two German paragraphs and two English paragraphs.

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

? Joe's sample doc has two German paragraphs and two English paragraphs.

Fair enough.

In fact, in Windows for me, the auto-hyphenation doesn't work in either the German or the English.

(That's from 2.5.0.2499.)

[MikeTO]

44 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

In fact, in Windows for me, the auto-hyphenation doesn't work in either the German or the English.

(That's from 2.5.0.2499.)

Quite odd, it works perfectly on macOS. This is an odd bug - it's odd that small caps is interfering with hyphenation since it's just a format, andit's odd that it's only on Windows since text flow bugs generally aren't platform specific in any app.

[Jofgac]

 

Hi,
I'm also resuming this discussion (always on small caps  ).

I confirm that even for me the hyphenation is problematic when setting “Small Caps”:

1) The hyphenation does not work when the text is set to Small Caps. (Same uppercase and lowercase text, instead the hyphenation worked.)

2) Using fonts that do not have the Small Caps series, setting small caps activates the false small caps and the hyphenation appears again.

3) Using fonts that only have the Small Caps series (where therefore it is not necessary to set this option), the hyphenation works normally. So it would not seem to be a glyph problem but instead linked to the action that produces the setting from the typography panel. (The same both by setting from text style, and by setting on the fly locally)

This tested on:
- macOs 10.12 + Affinity Publisher 1.10.8
- macOs 11.7 + Publisher 2.5.5*.
(Tested several languages)

* I would like to add that in Publisher 2, by setting “script typography” as “default” in the “language” panel, a correctly set Small Cap (for which hyphenation is not activated) turns into a false Small Cap and hyphenation is activated.

Any suggestions?

[kenmcd]

7 hours ago, Jofgac said:

Any suggestions?

What font are you using to test?

The prior tests above appeared to be using Arial.
Arial on macOS does not have OpenType small caps.
Arial on Windows does have OpenType small caps.
So that may have affected the discussion and tests above on different OSs.

It would be interesting to test both versions of Arial on both OSs.
And repeat your tests above.

[kenmcd]

7 hours ago, Jofgac said:

3) Using fonts that only have the Small Caps series (where therefore it is not necessary to set this option), the hyphenation works normally. So it would not seem to be a glyph problem but instead linked to the action that produces the setting from the typography panel. (The same both by setting from text style, and by setting on the fly locally)

When OpenType substitutions are done, APub appears to have issues with both hyphenation and line-breaking.
Small Cap fonts (SC) simply replace the lowercase glyphs with the small cap glyphs.
So there is no OpenType substitution required.

Here are the test fonts: ArialMac.and.ArialWin-Test.Fonts.zip

ArialMac-Regular.ttf - v5.01.2x from Sonoma (14)
No OpenType Small Caps (smcp) feature.

ArialWin-Regular.ttf - v7.00 from Win 10
Includes OpenType Small Caps (smcp) feature.

Both have been renamed so they will not conflict with existing installed versions, or with each other.
So they can be installed at the same time.

 

[Jofgac]

12 hours ago, kenmcd said:

What font are you using to test?

The prior tests above appeared to be using Arial.
Arial on macOS does not have OpenType small caps.
Arial on Windows does have OpenType small caps.
So that may have affected the discussion and tests above on different OSs.

It would be interesting to test both versions of Arial on both OSs.
And repeat your tests above.

I specify through some screenshots from which all the main details should be visible.
(identical results with other fonts of the same type, here one for all, Adobe Jenson Pro)

1 lowercase justified hyphenated
2 uppercase variation
3 real small capital variation (hyphenation disappears)
4 I show conTypography Script "auto"
5 I show conTypography Script "default" (hyphenation reappears but the small capital now switches by itself to the simulated one)

Typography Script is visible only in the "styles" panel and does not agree with the "character" panel

6 also some other options in the Styles>Capitals panel seem rather ineffable to me

I sincerely hope it depends on an incorrect configuration of mine, otherwise I have reported with sufficient detail to evaluate the issue.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2024 by Jofgac
rename images