[ NOT FIXED in v2.5.2] Installed fonts missing from Affinity apps on Windows in version 2.5.0

[Episaga Games ltd]

I am using the windows version of the latest Affinity publisher2 and I am getting a notification about a missing font. According to your forums it was fixed, but...obviously not. I am using windows 11 and when I tried to download the font it said there was no need. Being stubborn I found the font and downloaded it anyway. Still Affinity does not pick up the fact I installed it. What's even more odd, it is a star symbol that i am using, which I thought was part of the webdings font. The symbol appears at least a dozen times on each page of about half of my book. What is stranger still it is only while using the (2) columns format that the star disappears. When I paste a chart, the star appears as it should. I am on about pg 200 of my near 600 page book and do not wish to do each of these stars manually. Plus when I do, I get these weird extra big spaces. Yes, I am using an updated version, before anyone asks. Any help would be great.

[NotMyFault]

8 hours ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

Yes, I am using an updated version, before anyone asks. Any help would be great.

Which version exactly? The title say 2.5.2, are you on 2.5.5 which has been released recently?
 

[walt.farrell]

11 hours ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

According to your forums it was fixed

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

It would be helpfull if you would provide a pointer to that notification, so we can tell for sure what you're talking about.

I'm going to guess you're referring to this:

We'll probably also need some screenshots to illustrate the issue you're having in your book. For example:

• Any messages you get from the application about a missing font.
• Screenshots of the Font Manager dialog within the application.
• Anything else (such as weird big spaces) that are troublesome.

Did you create this document in Publisher, or import it from some other application? If you created it in Publisher it's odd that a font (or character) could suddenly be missing, unless the problem you have is that you used a Variable Font prior to 2.5 (when they were first supported in Affinity), then updated to 2.5.

By the way, if that's the problem you're discussing, please note that you probably should not be using SF Pro. From what I've read, Apple licenses it only for use within application user interfaces, not within documents. So unless your use of it is to describe/illustrate an application UI, it's probably not appropriate to use that font.

And using it may cause performance issues in the Affinity applications when you want to export your book to PDF format.

[Episaga Games ltd]

I did not create the document in publisher as I have only had the program for a short time. I used word 2003. All fonts I am said to be using are already in the program from what I can tell, including webdings 1-3. I am not using the font you have listed as SF pro. I just want to use a simple black star. As mentioned when featured in a chart, the star appears normally. When placed in a 2 column column I get the error. I can cut and paste the star manually but then I get the weird spacing issue. I will do a quick test run to see if I will have pdf issues but I do not think I should. As a point of interest I have been a long time windows fan and avoided Apple products. The only reason i used this program was because it was 1 of only 2 programs my publisher will accept. Secondly I won't do subscriptions. I find it disappointing that in less than 3 days I could manage to trip up my first apple product purchase. 

[kenmcd]

6 hours ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

I just want to use a simple black star.

Not sure why you would choose a huge CJK font for a star symbol...

Yu Gothic comes with Windows.
So if you installed it again you may have duplicates.
And sometimes when there are duplicate font files, Affinity displays nothing.
Make sure you have no duplicate font files in your Fonts folders.

Additionally, the Yu Gothic fonts are in TTC files.
Affinity cannot handle some TTC files correctly.
Another reason to not use Yu Gothic.

Segoe UI Symbols (comes with Windows) has the star symbol.

Noto Sans Symbols 2 (free OFL) has the star symbol.

Suggest you use one of those fonts or another font instead of Yu Gothic.

[Episaga Games ltd]

Kenmcd...not sure you are understanding my situation.
First I get the star symbol when it is featured in  a chart...
Second I do not get a star when I use the columns feature in the text...
3rd I don't even use the Yu gothic font, that is just an error the program showed when I started....
4rth The error occurred before I installed anything, so it definitely was not a duplicate issue

[kenmcd]

2 minutes ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

First I get the star symbol when it is featured in  a chart...

Need to know what font is used on the star in that pasted chart.
Some symbols may be from a symbol font (not Unicode).
Some symbols may be from a font with old encoding (which is not supported).

Need to see what is in the charts you are pasting.
Please attach an example.

You may be able to replace the "bad" star character with a better star character using search-and-replace.

[Episaga Games ltd]

Kenmcd.

Need to know what font is used on the star in that pasted chart..........................Wings dings either 1 or 2

Some symbols may be from a symbol font (not Unicode). ............................No clue what that means

Some symbols may be from a font with old encoding (which is not supported)..... Seems silly not to include them all

Need to see what is in the charts you are pasting......Due to the sensitive nature of my work, I have arranged a nice chart for you to compare. Each entry is a screen shot just edited to fit my chart. All entries are as the appear in their stated place.

You may be able to replace the "bad" star character with a better star character using search-and-replace......I doubt that as no star appears at all and nothing sits as a place holder.

 

Thank you for answering me and your time.

 

 

[NotMyFault]

1 hour ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

Due to the sensitive nature of my work, I have arranged a nice chart for you to compare.

Can you please copy/paste a non-sensitive portion of the file (where the issue is visible) into a new document, and upload it? so we can check the file directly.

On 9/28/2024 at 4:15 PM, Episaga Games ltd said:

I find it disappointing that in less than 3 days I could manage to trip up my first apple product purchase. 

Affinity Apps are available on Windows, too. So why did you switch to Apple? Do you use Mac or iPad?

[Episaga Games ltd]

NMF, I will pass, as I have already given the relevant information as is.
Affinity is made by apple.

 

[Episaga Games ltd]

So when adding a star with cntrl V I get less spacing issues.
I noticed as well when I pasted a star the undid the paste and then redid the paste I got an option to redo a square symbol.

I am tempted at first to think it is a missing font, but then my charts display the star symbol properly.  Are charts treated as graphics rather than font?
Also it may be of interest if I paste a star and then begin typing it is in the webding font.

Edited October 1 by Episaga Games ltd

[NotMyFault]

16 minutes ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

NMF, I will pass, as I have already given the relevant information as is.

No, an image of a pipe is not a pipe.

19 minutes ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

Affinity is made by apple.

Affinity Apps are developed (made) by Serif, owned by Canva, not by Apple. It is sold/distributed by Apple App Store, Microsoft App Store, and the Serif online store. 

 

[Episaga Games ltd]

NMF you have offered little in the way of help and taken on a combative attitude thus far. Paired with your disclaimer about "softeners" does little to encourage further interaction on my part. Best to you in your pursuits.

[Episaga Games ltd]

UPDATE: I have managed to paste from the original document with the stars intact. The stars disappear only when I paste into the 2 column format. Does the column option have its own unique formatting?

[NotMyFault]

4 minutes ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

NMF you have offered little in the way of help and taken on a combative attitude thus far. Paired with your disclaimer about "softeners" does little to encourage further interaction on my part. Best to you in your pursuits.

For me it seems you are insisting on your point of view which is proven wrong at least partially (wrt to Apple / Affinity) and lack the required willingness to participate in the solving process (not giving the required details requested by 3 individuals)

examples:

On 9/28/2024 at 10:58 PM, Episaga Games ltd said:

Kenmcd...not sure you are understanding my situation.

 

11 hours ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

NMF, I will pass, as I have already given the relevant information as is.

 

Good luck in getting help from other forum members or moderators to solve your problem without the minimum participation.

All the very best for you, I’m out, too.

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

The stars disappear only when I paste into the 2 column format. Does the column option have its own unique formatting?

No, it doesn't.

Can you create this in a sample document, and share it with us in .afpub format so we can try to figure out what's happening?

[kenmcd]

★

On 10/1/2024 at 11:43 AM, Episaga Games ltd said:

I noticed as well when I pasted a star the undid the paste and then redid the paste I got an option to redo a square symbol.

That box is the .notdef symbol - which means the character is not defined in the selected font.

On 10/1/2024 at 11:43 AM, Episaga Games ltd said:

Also it may be of interest if I paste a star and then begin typing it is in the webding font.

The webdings font does not have a star symbol.
Webdings is an old style symbol font (not a modern Unicode font).

On 10/1/2024 at 2:28 AM, Episaga Games ltd said:

Some symbols may be from a symbol font (not Unicode). ............................No clue what that means

Once upon a time... back before Unicode... fonts had collections of characters called code pages. And all the different vendors had different code pages. A freakin' nightmare for cross-platform compatibility. This included collections of symbols, and they are all different. These are unfortunately still around for legacy compatibility reasons.
Using a symbol font for anything cross-platform is going to be a potential problem.

On 10/1/2024 at 2:28 AM, Episaga Games ltd said:

Need to know what font is used on the star in that pasted chart..........................Wings dings either 1 or 2

Wingdings 1 does have a black star symbol, but it too is an old symbol font.
No telling how an old Office application is going to embed a symbol.

LibreOffice (LO) had a similar issue with the symbols used in Word bulleted lists.
LO on Linux or Mac did not have these same old Windows symbols fonts.
And the way these symbols were embedded did not make replacement easy.
They made a sort of hybrid font from OpenSymbol (opens___.ttf).
And the doc import code in LO fixes the mess.
 

Office 2003 is an antique and I have no idea how the chart app embeds a symbol.
That is why knowledgeable people want to see a source document.
Images are useless.
Since you are using Office 2003, there is only .doc and no .docx.
With a .docx we could look inside and see exactly what is in there.
Or with an export to PDF we could at least see if it is just a shape.

But it can all probably be avoided by using a modern Unicode font for the star.
As I suggested above.
This ★ is a Unicode character (blackstar, U+2605).
Since this character is not in the Inter web font used in this forum, my Firefox browser is smart enough to substitute it (in my case with Segoe UI Symbol).
Even Safari can probably get this right as this character is in the Apple Symbol font.

So replace the star symbol in your source document with an actual Unicode black star symbol (U+2605).

Noto Sans Symbol 2 has the blackstar (U+2605) - free OFL font
Segoe UI Symbol (a Windows standard font) has the blackstar (U+2605)
In addition, BabelMap gave me a long list (126) of my installed fonts which support this character.

If this does not work, and you still will not provide a sample doc - I'm done.
I have no idea how a 20-year-old version of Office is embedding symbols.
That is still in the GDl/Uniscribe era before DirectWrite.
Who knows what they were doing back then.

p.s. Ignorance with Attitude is not a way to make friends, or get help.

[Episaga Games ltd]

A lot of your replies do not mean a lot to me Ken as I am very new to the program...less than a week when I posted this. My best guess as to your meaning is that I am using an old program with old fonts that new programs no longer like. As mentioned my charts keep the symbol but my text does not. Webdings may not have a star, but I did not claim that it did, only that if I typed directly after a black star that the font switched to webdings. I am supposing more of the chaos you described above. You speak of unicoding and u+2605....which I do not understand. For now I am just manually putting back the stars and this seems to be my only fix with the knowledge base  that I have to work with.
In regards to your last comment,  Ignorance with Attitude is not a way to make friends, or get help., I will reply only with that I match energy's in this regard. I'm new, and wholly admit I know nothing about the program, so it seems of little use for people to come at me when I am here looking for help. With that in mind I bid you a good day!
 

[Deperditus Cliens]

3 hours ago, Episaga Games ltd said:

You speak of unicoding and u+2605....which I do not understand.

This ★ is a Unicode character, meaning it’s a standard symbol that works across different programs and platforms. Unlike older fonts like Wingdings, which may not display properly in some software, Unicode symbols are more reliable.

 

🔗 home.unicode.org

Windows:

1. Press Windows key + . (period) to open the emoji panel.
2. Click on the "Symbols" tab and find the star.

On macOS:

1. Press Control + Command + Space to open the Character Viewer.
2. Search for "star" and insert it from there

I have no idea how your Word document was structured and formatted, but when importing large amounts of content from one program to another, as in this case, it’s important to keep the source as format neutral and simple as possible, and using Unicode for symbols is a good choice.

 

There is an extreme lack of a story editor in Publisher, where, among other things, one can review, edit, and standardize a large amount of imported text. For this reason alone, I can't use Publisher for complex documents. 

Regarding the issue you're experiencing, Affinity is far from flawless and can be especially fragile when handling complex tasks. However, it’s quite difficult to determine the problem and solution without a document. If you can upload a sample page showing the issue, where you’ve replaced the text with gibberish, it would be immensely helpful.