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AD : Baffling font issue: Novelia Pro


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Hi all,

I've been having a super-weird issue with a particular font: Novelia Pro. I've got a workaround, I think, but wanted to post and see if it can be addressed.

The font has three weights: Novelia Pro A, Novelia Pro B, and Novelia Pro Swashes. I only installed A and B, and the fonts work correctly in all other apps (Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, PowerPoint, etc.)

But in Affinity Designer, the behavior was bizarre. I'll try to describe, but also have a screencap attached. The first letter of every word, whether capital or lowercase, would be a character with huge swirls (that isn't displayed in the extended character or glyph set of the font). The letters after that first character display correctly. But if I delete the first character, the second character changes to a version that has the huge swirls.

I thought maybe it was an OpenType issue, so I deactivated the OpenType version and activated only the TrueType version. No difference.

As I said, these fonts worked perfectly in every app but Designer. I started checking in the Character panel, and here's the weird thing: when I change the language from English to None, the font suddenly displays correctly!

I'm at a loss to explain it. I've never changed a font's language before, and don't know how/why that would cause this behavior. Has anyone else had this happen with a font?

I suppose that for now this is the workaround. If anyone has any insight, I'd love to learn what's going on.

B

NoveliaPro-display-issues-01.jpg

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There are certain OpenType features (even in the TTF version) that are on by default in many/most applications that support such OT Features. For instance, the beginning "swash" character is activated by default using the init feature. Having this feature on by default only makes sense in RTL and complex scripts (meaning Thai, Bengali, etc) and not for western scripts...but the OpenType Specification recommends it is on by default and so many/most applications do have it on by default.

Just turning off the init feature will produce a "normal" character presentation. I think the reason setting to No Language works the same/similar way is because the Default tag inside the font is overridden and so disables the init OT feature.

Mike

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Thank you, Mike! How does one turn off the Init option? The Typography panel only shows Capitals and is otherwise empty, even with "Show all font features" checked. Am I looking in the wrong place?

REALLY appreciate the fast and thorough explanation!

Typography 2018-10-28 11-21-56.jpg

Typography 2018-10-28 11-23-14.jpg

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I'm on Mac, but that was it. I didn't have the text selected, because I assumed it was a global setting. But it's on a per-instance basis?  I guess that does make more sense..?

Lots of great options in there that don't show up in a font manager's glyph display.

Interesting that this is the first time I've run into this. I wouldn't think that out of hundreds of fonts, this is the only one with these features... but maybe it is.

Thanks so much for this -- huge help!

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No worries!

I ran into this issue the first time I used the first AD for Windows beta. I have several western fonts (usually script fonts) that use the inti (Initial word letters), and/or the medi (Medial, the letters that do not begin nor end a word), and/or one or more of the 3 different fina (letters ending a word) OT features. RTL languages such as Arabic and complex scripts (like the Thai I mentioned) have certain characters that absolutely must be used at the beginning, middle or end of any given word. Which is why these 3 OT features exist. They are not intended to be used for Western scripts...but many Western script font authors use them because they are dead simple to code.

A little background. When those three OT features were first introduced, the language used in the specification was a bit ambiguous as to the "restriction," or intended, usage. And so many font authors of Western script fonts jumped on them because of their simplicity to use when coding a font. About 2-3 years ago, the specification for their use was reworded to make it clear. But we all still often use those features as the alternative, using the contextual alternative feature, is more time consuming to include in a font. And if one makes a mistake in what to include, or the "rules" governing their use, is not fully thought through, some characters may not swap out properly or at all.

TMI I suppose. But I get on a roll...

Take care, Mike

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16 minutes ago, Bmuse said:

I wouldn't think that out of hundreds of fonts, this is the only one with these features... but maybe it is.

I have thousands of fonts available on my Windows system (not all installed!) but only a couple of hundred of them include the ‘init’ feature, and even then it isn’t always obvious in use.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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I meant to say "the only one I've used with these features" -- not to imply that I thought this was the only font on Earth with Init features and I happened to find it.  :)

Mike, no such thing as TMI with this level of detail... really appreciate the insight, solution, and OpenType background and explanation!

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1 hour ago, Bmuse said:

I meant to say "the only one I've used with these features" -- not to imply that I thought this was the only font on Earth with Init features and I happened to find it.  :)

No worries — I took it the way you meant it! I was just trying to say that even though I have thousands of fonts at my disposal, fewer than two percent of them include the ‘init’ feature. Standard Windows fonts such as Arial, Courier New and Times New Roman appear on the list, but I wasn’t aware of the fact until I looked for the feature today.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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  • 1 year later...

I've added a comment on this topic to an existing thread.  I'm running Affinity Publisher 1.8.3 on Windows and do not see that useful Positional Alternative > Initial Forms option in my Typography panel.  The result is an illegible and useless font because I've no way to disable the OpenType "init" feature and almost every Latin glyph in the font I'm trying to use has an initial form.

[ADDED IN EDIT] When I turn on the "Hide irrelevant features" checkbox in the Typography panel, it exposes the Positional Alternate section, which offers the ability to suppress Initial Forms.  So I am going to submit a bug report about "hide" meaning "show".

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