Regular-Italic toggle issue in Publisher

[Chicky]

I have noticed that if I am typing text in an OpenType font that has a lot of family members beyond regular/italic/bold/bold italic, if I am typing in REGULAR text and then I hit curleyque-I to italicize it, it becomes ITALIC, as expected, but then if I hit curleyque-I again to un-italicize it, it defaults to the CAPTION version of the typeface, not the REGULAR version as expected. I can manually go back in and change it to Regular, but this is obviously incorrect behavior.

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Chicky

I’ve tried to replicate this in Designer 2.5.5 on Windows 10 with the Gravity (True Type), Ikigai (Open Type), Monserrat Alternative (Open Type) and Source Code Pro (Open Type) fonts but cannot, however I don’t have a Caption version of any of those fonts installed.

Can you tell us which font family you are seeing this behaviour with?

[Chicky]

I have been using Arno Pro. I can confirm that this behavior also happens with the fonts Cronos Pro, Warnock Pro, Minion, and Kepler, which all have Caption faces. MOREOVER, if I highlight Regular text in one of these fonts and change the base font to another font that includes a Caption face, all of the text immediately defaults to Caption instead of Regular. ALSO, if I toggle Cronos Pro Regular to italic, it goes straight to Caption Italic, even though there is an Italic option available. I can confirm that this happens with the keyboard shortcut or the italic toggle button on the menu bar. Many very common fonts that users of InDesign over the years have added to their portfolios (Utopia, Garamond Premier, Adobe Jenson) have Caption faces, and these would all seem to behave in weird ways in Affinity Publisher 2. (Edit: I am using a Mac.)

Edited October 4 by Chicky

[kenmcd]

You posted this is the feature requests, but this is really a bug.

Known issue(s).
No response from Affinity to previous discussions.
I was hoping that with the previous fonts/topography person gone that stuff like this might get fixed now.
Oh well... maybe some day.

Happens with:
- font families with multiple RIBBI style groups
- large super-families in one Typographic Family
- non-generic RIBBI style groups

The Bold and Italic buttons activate the style-linking in the fonts.
In a style group the Regular font is linked to the Bold font by the Bold button.
This was a big upgrade from the old individually selected fonts.
Just press a button to get the Bold or the Italic.

The generic style-group is RIBBI - Regular, Italic, Bold, BoldItalic
But an RIBBI style group can include any four fonts/weights

Of course Apple has never supported this simple system, and even today purposely sabotages some of their fonts to make sure this does not work.
Apparently Affinity has chosen to support a handful of mediocre Apple macOS fonts at the expense of properly supporting advanced, well-made, standards-compliant font families used throughout the graphics design industry.

Adobe and Microsoft do support the proper implementation of this system.
Which is why your fonts do work properly in Adobe InDesign, and in Microsoft Word, and LibreOffice, and many other applications.
Unfortunately Affinity Publisher is not one of them.

Part of the problem is supporting iStupid macOS nonsense like enabling the Bold button for all fonts equal or above 500 weight.
This ####s-up the style linking for non-generic style groups.
For example this breaks the style-linking in Avenir, Avenir Next, and Avenir World.
Hugely popular fonts that work properly in InDesign and LibreOffice.
Broken in Affinity Publisher.

Arno Pro is designed one large typographic family with many style groups.
There is an RIBBI style group for each optical size.
So there are five RIBBI style groups.
This appears to confuse APub.

Cronos Pro is designed one large typographic family with many style groups.
It also has multiple RIBBI style groups for each optical size.
So if you only installed one optical size, such as Caption, there are two RIBBI groups.
RIBBI 1 - Regular, Italic, Bold, BoldItalic
RIBBI 2 - Light, LightItalic, Semibold, SemiboldItalic.
This appears to confuse APub.
Install all five optical sizes, and APub is really confused.

Warnoc Pro - all in one large Typographic Family, one RIBBI group per optical size.

Minion Pro (and Minion 3) - one large Typographic Family, one RIBBI group per optical size.

Kepler - APub has no chance of getting this right.
All in one large Typographic Family.
All fonts are in RIBBI style groups.
Three RIBBI style groups in single optical sizes.
Three different widths.
Never gonna happen in APub at this time.
Works fine in InDesign and LibreOffice.

Adobe Jenson - IIRC this has four RIBBI style groups in the family
Cannot find it at the moment.

Adobe Garamond Premiere Pro - one large family, four optical sizes, four RIBBI groups

Other hopeless font families in APub...

ITC Avant Garde Pro - two non-generic RIBBI style groups.
RIBBI 1 - Book (300), BookItalic (300), Demi (600), DemiItalic (600)
RIBBI 2 - Medium (500), MediumItalic (500), Bold (700), BoldItalic (700)
There is no Regular (400) weight font in the family.
APub's little brain should just explode on that one.
Works as expected in LibreOffice.

IIRC Helvetica Neue LT Std has the same issue as Avenir.
It has two RIBBI style groups.
Would have to check it to see.

Long ago I tested Avenir by only selecting the base style in each style group and then applying the Bold and Italic buttons to get the other styles.
Things did not look right.
Export to PDF embedded the wrong fonts.
That discussion was over two years ago - and had no response.

Until they get rid of this iStupid macOS Bold nonsense, its never going to work 100%.
That would be a sign they actually care that this is still broken.
But given that there has been no response to previous discussions... oh well.
Maybe it is hard to fix and the "strategy" is to ignore it pretend it is not there.
Or maybe it is smooching Apple's behind at the expense of Windows users.
But it also does not work correctly for APub users on macOS.
Dumb.

Pretty bad situation as anyone established coming from Adopey is going to use these fonts.
And they are all broken in Affinity Publisher.

[Chicky]

I have to admit to chuckling when you got to Kepler. I guess I don't understand why a change from one font into another doesn't carry the font family member NAME along with it as a default, and why toggling italic should have a one-to-one relationship between Regular and Italic, and between Caption and Italic Caption (Semicondensed Subhead and Semicondensed Subhead Italic, etc.) I realize that the number sequences (500, 550, etc.) are a different sort of thing but the basic logic is fairly clear and should be reasonably easy to code. In the meantime, I'll be careful and try to remind myself to do a global search for Caption and Caption Italic before I publish a project.

 

[kenmcd]

@Chicky  It may get the correct font if you always select them from the font menu. That is using the typographic family and typographic style to select the fonts. Hopefully this may avoid the bad style-linking. 

But, that dumb auto-Bold-button thing may still mess it up. Will test this tomorrow.

We are going to need to know if the work-around actually works - for the rest of the expected users with the same issue.

Another work-around is to only install the fonts actually used. Not convenient, but if ya got a deadline...

And always check the PDF to see if the correct fonts got embedded. 

[Chicky]

I can, of course, select "Italic" from the dropdown instead of using a keyboard shortcut. That's what I'm doing right now. It's a goofy workaround that feels like 1982, but it's certainly possible.

Caption looks a lot like Regular, but is *off* enough to make a big difference in a design; it reads sort of like one-sixth bold. It's hard to catch.

I am hopeful that Affinity Publisher can eventually be a substitute for InDesign. Because I have a collection of really nice fonts, I don't need the "Optical Kerning" thing that other people complain about when it comes to working with low-end fonts. But this is on the other end of the spectrum—having really excellent fonts from collecting them over 20+ years of being a graphic designer (OTF Font Folio plus favorites picked up along the way). If Affinity isn't a good solution for people with low-end fonts and Affinity isn't a good solution for people with high-end fonts, exactly what market is Affinity trying to land?

[Stephen - TGF]

On 10/4/2024 at 9:17 AM, GarryP said:

Welcome to the forums @Chicky

I’ve tried to replicate this in Designer 2.5.5 on Windows 10 with the Gravity (True Type), Ikigai (Open Type), Monserrat Alternative (Open Type) and Source Code Pro (Open Type) fonts but cannot, however I don’t have a Caption version of any of those fonts installed.

Can you tell us which font family you are seeing this behaviour with?

Candara is the one I've had this issue with. (As you know from the other post, posting here for completeness.)

[Oufti]

30 minutes ago, Stephen - TGF said:

As you know from the other post

It's here:

 

[Lee D]

@Chicky I've logged this with the developers and included the extra information @kenmcd provided as well as linking to the other forum thread mentioned.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Font not returning to previous trait when toggled (font family dependent)" (REF: AF-4877) has been fixed by the developers in the latest beta build (2.6.0.2861). The fix is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Affinity Info Bot to notify us.

[Chicky]

Great. Looking forward to using the improved system!

[Stephen - TGF]

DELIGHTED to hear this is being addressed.