New font installed does not show up in Photo or Designer

[Greg Hartwick]

I’ve loaded a new ttf font (from Dafont.com) - it shows up in word processor app, and Profiles, does not appear in iPad Designer or Photo fonts list. I’ve loaded many fonts from this source, never had this problem. I’ve restarted apps, I rebooted pad, deleted profile and reinstalled - no help. 

[Chris26]

This is a quote/reply from Alfred on this forum to the same question I had weeks ago.

Bahnschrift is a variable font. This is a relatively new kind of font (where multiple styles are defined within a single font file instead of each style being defined in a separate file) and the Affinity apps don’t yet support them.

Is your font a variable font?

[Greg Hartwick]

No, it appears (in the word processor) to have only one type. It’s an old cartoon like font (‘Keep On Truckin’) with only upper case and lower case . 

[Alfred]

29 minutes ago, Greg Hartwick said:

It’s an old cartoon like font (‘Keep On Truckin’)

I’ve downloaded and installed it here — groovy, baby! — and I can confirm that it doesn’t show up in the Affinity for iPad apps. It works as expected in the Windows desktop versions of the apps.

[Greg Hartwick]

One more thing for the puzzle. I said it worked in a word processor (Pages), so I typed a couple of letters, copied them to the clipboard, and then pasted it into an Affinity Photo file. Surprise, it works in a Photo file (the name appears in the font window). So, I’ve got a ‘work-around ‘ but I hate not knowing why it’s still not on the list. This does not work for Designer (surprise?).

[MikeW]

51 minutes ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

I’ve downloaded and installed it here — groovy, baby! — and I can confirm that it doesn’t show up in the Affinity for iPad apps. It works as expected in the Windows desktop versions of the apps.

Alfred, it may be it needs fixing, date and all the other metadata. I don't have an iAnything to try.

You've got FC. Maybe try?

[Alfred]

33 minutes ago, Greg Hartwick said:

One more thing for the puzzle. I said it worked in a word processor (Pages), so I typed a couple of letters, copied them to the clipboard, and then pasted it into an Affinity Photo file. Surprise, it works in a Photo file (the name appears in the font window). So, I’ve got a ‘work-around ‘ but I hate not knowing why it’s still not on the list. This does not work for Designer (surprise?).

Pasting works in Photo, but the name doesn’t appear where it should when I scroll down the list; ‘Paste Style’ should also work, but it has no effect. I can confirm that none of the above works in Designer, where all of the pasting options are greyed out.

11 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Alfred, it may be it needs fixing, date and all the other metadata. I don't have an iAnything to try.

You've got FC. Maybe try?

I’m on my iPad at the moment, Mike, but I’ll take a look next time I’m back on my Windows machine.

[DM1]

Will it install using something like Anyfont?

[Greg Hartwick]

AnyFont is the app that I used. The installation works fine - all iOS programs can see it. Affinity Photo and Designer can’t recognize the font.

[Alfred]

21 hours ago, MikeW said:

Alfred, it may be it needs fixing, date and all the other metadata. I don't have an iAnything to try.

You've got FC. Maybe try?

 

21 hours ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

I’m on my iPad at the moment, Mike, but I’ll take a look next time I’m back on my Windows machine.

Well, FC turned up a few validation errors, but nothing serious. However, the PANOSE data looks decidedly odd:

Here's the PANOSE data for Weedy Beasties NF:

Update: Applying the PANOSE settings from Weedy Beasties NF to a copy of Keep on Truckin’ FW gives me a font which is usable in the Affinity on iPad apps.

Edited December 3, 2018 by αℓƒяє∂
Added new information

[Greg Hartwick]

Alfred, it looks like you have a fix for this font. Is there any way I can fix my copy? 

[Alfred]

I’ve just sent you a PM with a download link.

[Greg Hartwick]

Alfred, thank you very much! It works perfectly in both apps. So, it was a ‘defective’ font file (or is it an Affinity issue?). Does this happen very often? I’ve been downloading fonts from dafont for years.

 

[Alfred]

12 minutes ago, Greg Hartwick said:

Alfred, thank you very much!

You’re very welcome, Greg.

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It works perfectly in both apps.

Glad to hear it (albeit not particularly surprised, since I found the same).

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So, it was a ‘defective’ font file (or is it an Affinity issue?).

It was defective: as you can see from my screenshot, not only were there zeroes for most of the entries which should define various characteristics of the font, but the ‘Weight’ entry was completely blank. It seems that some apps cope with such defects more gracefully than others!

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Does this happen very often?

Not in my experience (or yours, apparently).

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I’ve been downloading fonts from dafont for years.

Me too.