How to use glyphs from icon fonts?

[arechsteiner]

I'm trying to use an icon font in Affinity Designer, pe-7-icon-stroke (freely available here). However I have trouble finding and pasting the right glyph into Designer. I have tried the built-in Windows app Character Map to copy glyphs, but when when I paste them into Designer, all that is pasted is a line break. Similarly, when I try to paste glyphs from Font Awesome, I get an empty rectangle instead of the actual glyph.

 

On Windows, what is the recommended way to paste and use icon fonts? How do I get the desired glyphs from a font into Designer?

 

Using 1.5.0.26 RC2 on Windows 10.

[Alfred]

You need to 'Paste Special' as Unicode Text. (The default format is RTF.)

 

That font provides a very good example of why the dropdown list of font names in AD shouldn't only display the font name using glyphs from the font. In this case, all of the glyphs are in the Private Use Area, so I just get a blank line where it should say 'Pe-icon-7-stroke' in the list.

 

By the way, if you're doing a lot of this kind of thing you might find BabelMap easier to work with than Windows' built-in Character Map.

[Guest]

Hello arecsteiner,


I have not found a way to use all glyphs of a font with AD.

This feature will certainly be added later.

 

I'm on the same setup as you and I have no problem to use this font from NexusFont.

Once installed the file (.ttf), the fonte appears in AD (restart thereof may be necessary).

In NexusFont your fonte appears in the installed fonts. For a list of glyphs click on the icon with twelve small square dots in the top toolbar.

In the window that appears, double-click each glyph to import into AD. Once they all appear in the right window, select them and copy them.

Then go on with AD and the cast selected from the list to copy the contents of the clipboard, the glyphs appear and can be used normally.

I hope I answered your expectations,

cordially


See the screenshots attached.

 

Sorry for my poor english!

[Guest]

Bonjour Alfred,

 

Vous avez raison au sujet de BabelMap mais pour ma part j'ai arrêté de l'utiliser depuis quelques années.

 

J'ai utilisé Illustrator 9 jusqu'à W8 et BabelMap me donnait des résultats fantaisistes (les caractères sélectionnés et copiés dans BabelMap devenaient d'autres caractères dans Illustrator). J'ai essayé les dernières versions et j'ai toujours eu des problèmes. Je pensais que cela venait de ma vieille version d'Illustrator mais quand je suis passé à CS2 sous W8 les problèmes ont été les mêmes si je passais par BabelMap.

Mon ordinateur est mort et j'ai laissé BabelMap.

 

Cordialement

 

Hello Alfred,

You are right about BabelMap but for my part I stop using it for a few years.

I used Illustrator 9 and up W8 BabelMap gave me strange results (selected and copied characters in BabalMam became different
characters in Illustrator). I tried the latest versions and I had always problems. I thought it was from my older version
Illustrator but when I switched to CS2 on W8 problems have been the same if I was going through BabelMap.

 

My computer died and I left BabelMap.

cordially

[arechsteiner]

You need to 'Paste Special' as Unicode Text. (The default format is RTF.)

This works with the default Character Map tool. Thanks.

 

That font provides a very good example of why the dropdown list of font names in AD shouldn't only display the font name using glyphs from the font. In this case, all of the glyphs are in the Private Use Area, so I just get a blank line where it should say 'Pe-icon-7-stroke' in the list.

I've reported this here earlier: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/26635-bug-ux-trouble-finding-and-selecting-icon-font/

 

I'm on the same setup as you and I have no problem to use this font from NexusFont.

Thanks, I've installed NexusFont and it works perfectly. I don't have to use "Paste Special". Normal copy/paste works here for some reason. Also NexusFont looks pretty good. I might be using this to manage my fonts in the future.

[Guest]

OK arecsteiner, thank you for your feedback.

[Alfred]

I've reported this here earlier: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/26635-bug-ux-trouble-finding-and-selecting-icon-font/

 

Thanks for the link. Edit: I've posted to the other thread about the font name display issue.

 

Thanks, I've installed NexusFont and it works perfectly. I don't have to use "Paste Special". Normal copy/paste works here for some reason.

 

It probably depends on the range of formats placed on the clipboard. The 'Paste Special' option will reveal any additional options made available by NexusFont.

Edited October 24, 2016 by Alfred

[arechsteiner]

It probably depends on the range of formats placed on the clipboard. The 'Paste Special' option will reveal any additional options made available by NexusFont.

 

Yeah, they differ. With NexusFont only Unicode is available.

[Alfred]

Yeah, they differ. With NexusFont only Unicode is available.

 

Well, that would explain why the default option gives a good result! :P