Entirely Different Fonts Available in V2 Designer versus V1 Designer messing up my work

[Mattie M.]

Has anyone else noticed that Version 2 of Affinity Designer has way less and entirely different fonts available of the text options?

It has entirely messed up my entire work collection because both works with texts and all my watermarked works now have to be completely redone with new font. My watermark in particular makes me extremely upset because I am in the midst of trying to make an online portfolio and have watermarked works from years of using V1 that I now have to go through all over again, re-making  and re-applying my watermark. I made my initial watermark in V1 using Lucida Handwriting because it looked similar to my own handwriting but more legible, giving it a personal but still professional feeling, but that font is not available in V2 and just turns all my watermarks on all my works into gibberish.

This is extremely disappointing and makes me extremely upset because I now have to waste time I could be using to finish my online portfolio going back through several years of photographs, digital art, and graphic design works to apply my re-made V2 watermark because there aren't even any cross compatible fonts that I feel can work for the personal yet professional feel I'm aiming for with my watermark.

It would be great if the Affinity team could explain why the fonts in V1 and V2 Designer aren't the same and whether or not they plan to fix that so they are the same and cross compatible across the old and new versions of the app.

 

[lacerto]

I do not know what the exact status of Type 1 (PostScript) fonts is within Affinity v2 apps, but I think they are still supported (though if I remember correctly, the initial v2 release had Type 1 support broken). As I just. tested this on Windows 11 Pro, it seems that I can still use Type 1 fonts in e.g. Designer v2, but it might list the Type 1 fonts in menus differently than Designer v1 (this is what happens with certain Type 1 fonts on my Windows computer). This probably is not the cause you experience different behavior between versions 1 and 2, but worth a check, anyway.

[Alfred]

9 minutes ago, lacerto said:

I do not know what the exact status of Type 1 (PostScript) fonts is within Affinity v2 apps

I doubt that this is relevant. PostScript Type 1 fonts were introduced by Adobe in 1984, but the OP specifically mentions Lucida Handwriting, a TrueType font which dates back to 1990. The fact that the OP is getting gibberish instead of the correct text displayed using a fallback font suggests that something else is going on here.

[lacerto]

57 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I doubt that this is relevant. PostScript Type 1 fonts were introduced by Adobe in 1984

Yes, I doubted it too, but could not figure any other bigger change in font technology, in this direction (v2 apps now support variable fonts, but this should not have any kind of effect on this issue, either)...[Besides: "way less and entirely different fonts" pointed a bit in a kind of issue I noticed with different menu names of some Type 1 fonts used in v1 and v2 Affinity apps.]

UPDATE: ...and things like this (the entire family also in Type 1):

https://ctan.math.washington.edu/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/psnfssx/lucidabr/lucida-sample.pdf

[Hangman]

Other than any changes to standard Windows Fonts between Windows 10 and 11 the same fonts should be available in v1 and v2 if installed on the user's system...

PDF Lib is deprecating Type 1 fonts but they are currently still supported... Lucida Handwriting isn't a Type 1 font...

7 hours ago, Mattie M. said:

I made my initial watermark in V1 using Lucida Handwriting because it looked similar to my own handwriting but more legible, giving it a personal but still professional feeling, but that font is not available in V2 and just turns all my watermarks on all my works into gibberish.

Lucida Handwriting is still happily working in v2 on my setup...

If it's not appearing then it can be re-installed... but it sounds like there may be a font conflict...

https://online-fonts.com/fonts/lucida-handwriting

[Komatös]

I still have the Lucida and can use it in the V2 versions of the Affinity programs.

Simply enter this string in the Windows File Explorer address bar: %systemRoot%\Fonts to see if the font is installed.

[lacerto]

43 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Lucida Handwriting isn't a Type 1 font...

No, not in your system. 

[kenmcd]

The Lucida Handwriting font comes with Microsoft Office, not with Windows.

The original poster does not state what operating system.
Current versions of Office on macOS block access to the fonts from anything but Office applications.

So more specific info beyond "it don't work" would be helpful.

But "gibberish" does possibly point to a font cache issue, or duplicate font files.

[Hangman]

22 minutes ago, kenmcd said:

Current versions of Office on macOS block access to the fonts from anything but Office applications.

As mentioned above, the TrueType version of the font can be downloaded for free here and installed on either OS and will be available in both the V1 and V2 versions of the Affinity apps so other than a font conflict, there should be no issues...