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Converting .affont to .ttf?


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New here, 

I just installed a font pack that came in the .affont file format. Now I'm wondering what to do with these fonts as our clients all have websites - and even if I made print or non-print PDFs for them, these materials would always need to follow the clients CVI. I.e. they have font X on their website, so the PDF should not be some fancy font Y, but also font X.

If there was a way to convert fancy font Y into .ttf however, I could start using them on future projects or design make-overs. What's the use of a proprietary font format?

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18 minutes ago, Nils Sens said:

If there was a way to convert fancy font Y into .ttf however, I could start using them on future projects or design make-overs. What's the use of a proprietary font format?

Can you see the fonts in your OS font manager? If you can, they can be saved/exported/edited. Otherwise avoid them.

All of the fonts (except one IIRC) are for sale in normal font formats. If you have to depend on the fonts, a proprietary format is very bad as it will invariably block access at some critical point when you need it.

Own your mission-critical fonts.

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In addition to what has been said above, the EULA (End User Licence Agreement) which came with the font pack should tell you what you can and cannot do with the fonts.

If that doesn’t specifically cover your particular situation, or if you are in any way unsure of the legal situation, then I would recommend contacting the owner of the fonts directly to get their advice.

If you don’t know how to find out who is the owner of the fonts then if you tell us the names of the fonts someone should be able to help you with that.

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It is not possible to convert .affont files to .ttf or .otf, and they are intended for use only within the Affinity applications. You can Export a PDF that embeds the fonts, but you would not be able to directly use it on a website (HMTL) as far as I know.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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Thanks for the replies, Affinity take note: anything that can be used only inside Affinity is completely useless because I don't work for Affinity but for "people out there". Projects nowadays (since 2000 ish?) involve both web and print.

I can take your other assets, export for the web and use there. Why not the fonts, too? 

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10 minutes ago, Nils Sens said:

I can take your other assets, export for the web and use there.

You can’t upload the asset files themselves, but you can export their contents to a web-friendly format such as JPEG or PNG.

12 minutes ago, Nils Sens said:

Why not the fonts, too?

Again, you can’t upload font files directly, and you can’t embed them in web pages unless their licensing rights cover such a use case, but you can always export text as vector or raster.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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By the way, the EULA for the Publication Typeface Font collection can be found here, and describes how you may legally use them. These fonts, for example, are not licensed (when used from this package) to be used directly on a website. Other font collections may have other restrictions, of course.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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Affinity makers should not include assets in "asset packs" used to sell the upgrade to new versions, that have no real world use. Again, you can use .affonts to design personal art or invitations to your child's birthday - but if you work professionally, online and offline go hand in hand. Proprietary font format makes 0 sense.

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8 minutes ago, Nils Sens said:

Proprietary font format makes 0 sense.

A proprietary format makes every sense if you want an easy way to enforce compliance with licensing restrictions. Flags in an ordinary font file can be set so that the font’s embeddability licensing rights prevent the font from being installed, but anyone with access to a font editor can change the permissions.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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As mentioned above, all of these fonts are available for purchase (with one exception). So nothing is being protected.

Any scheme to lock fonts into a particular application is just that - a scheme to lock-in users. 

Affinity can remove access to these fonts at any time. So relying on them for any marketing or branding is crazy.

@Nils Sens Which font(s) are you using?

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21 minutes ago, kenmcd said:

Affinity can remove access to these fonts at any time

How? They would have to reprogram the application to actively reject those fonts when the user manually installs the .affont files.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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54 minutes ago, Nils Sens said:

Technically correct from their POV.

IMG_2134.gif.ee2447e293c6a4671269ef4b2d7f6383.gif

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

How? They would have to reprogram the application to actively reject those fonts when the user manually installs the .affont files.

Since they control access to those fonts, they can easily turn-off that access.
At any time.
The user has no control over this.

I assume that at some point the license/agreement with the font vendor will expire.
Affinity may choose to let it expire or choose to try to extend that agreement.
The font vendor may choose to not extend the agreement again.
The user has no control over this.

This situation is no different than when Amazon removed books from users' Kindles.
Or when streaming services remove paid-for videos from users' accounts.
If you do not have a font in your possession, it can, and will, be gone eventually.

We have already seen in this forum the problems caused by Apple applying controls to fonts which were previously unencumbered. There are examples posted by users here where the users said they lost access to default "corporate" fonts, and now they are scrambling to fix the problem.

And the problems with Windows Cloud Fonts.

And the problems with Creative Cloud fonts.

Renting fonts is just as bad as renting any other software.
You are asking for problems when some vendor has control.
And you will have this problem at the worst possible time.

If you have a business use for a font - own it!
And if this is for a customer, it is irresponsible to not have complete control of the fonts.

 

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FWIW the first time I encountered an .affont file was the last time I ever used (and will ever use) the Affinity store.

Purchasing a thing in a proprietary format than can easily be purchased in a non-proprietary format is simply not a wise investment.

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11 minutes ago, kenmcd said:

Since they control access to those fonts, they can easily turn-off that access.
At any time.
The user has no control over this.

The user can manually download the files from their account to their computer. They do not need to install via the Account dialog.

I can't really comment on the rest of your points.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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Not meaning to say they will, but they technically definitely could update .affont use in future updates. I really think they wouldn't do that because it would create an outrage. My point was merely that of usefulness. Affinity makers might want to recognize the connectedness of online-offline(print) and include .ttf in their packages so that we can actually use them. Good meme, though! :)

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Myself I looked at the fonts. Was not impressed. I have them downloaded somewhere but never got around to using them. And to be honest, if there was one I really liked and wanted to use, I wouldn't. Because it can be used only by the Affinity applications.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.6 
Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

The user can manually download the files from their account to their computer. They do not need to install via the Account dialog.

Having the files does not matter.
Access to the fonts in those files is only via the Affinity applications.
So Affinity can turn-off that access.
Or simply drop support for those kinds of files.

Appears you are assuming forever-access to those files.
And assume the applications will always support these types of files.
That may be true.
But I doubt it.

Own the fonts instead and it does not matter.

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