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Typography looks different when placed as .ai file


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Hi,

I just did some work for a client and found a bug (I think). I have a lot of logos as .ai files and placing them in publisher works really good so far. Except for one thing: if the logo uses open type features in illustrator such as stylistic sets, they will not appear in publisher. instead the basic typography is applied.

To me this looks more like a bug than an expected behavior. Am I right?

Bildschirmfoto 2019-06-27 um 14.26.37.png

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An Affinity app can only read the PDF stream in an AI file, not the native Illustrator data itself, so it’s entirely dependent upon the information which is included (or not!) in that PDF stream.

Are you able apply a different stylistic set to the imported text?

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yes I can apply stylistic sets (and all other options). I hope you do understand what I mean: when I place a file it should be handled as it is (no changes). when I import a file then I would expect that there are maybe some changes.

according to your info with that pdf stream thing I tried the following: I saved the logo as native PDF 1.4 without any extras from illustrator. when I open that pdf in Acrobat and Preview everything looks good (screenshot 1). When I place this pdf file in publisher I have the same problem again...

If I save the logo as old style EPS everything looks good.

so again this looks to me that publisher applies changes to or ignores information of the placed pdf. 

screen1.png

screen2.png

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  • 2 weeks later...

Publisher does not currently support PDF passthrough and does not support the use of embedded font data within PDFs; it always tries to create an editable "embedded document" from the PDF.

Since the AI files are basically handled by reading the PDF in the AI file, importing them will suffer from the same problems that will arise when importing a PDF, about which there have been many complaints on the forum.

I would expect this situation to improve in the future, but obviously I cannot speak to Serif's timetable on this.

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What happens if rather than using an OpenType stylistic set ... you replace those three characters with the actual alternate glyphs directly (using a glyph browser)?
I would expect the glyphs to survive in that case.

What happens if you open the AI file in Designer, save it as a Designer file, and place that?
I would expect OpenType features to be preserved in that case.

 

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11 hours ago, LibreTraining said:

What happens if rather than using an OpenType stylistic set ... you replace those three characters with the actual alternate glyphs directly (using a glyph browser)?
I would expect the glyphs to survive in that case.

just tried that with no success... they still are changed to the default versions. If I replace those characters with the glyph browser, they are automatically set to the specific stylistic set. I guess thats how opentype fonts should work.

 

11 hours ago, LibreTraining said:

What happens if you open the AI file in Designer, save it as a Designer file, and place that?
I would expect OpenType features to be preserved in that case.

if I open those files in AD I also have to set the stylistic alternates/sets again within AD. When I save and place it as afdesign file then, everything looks as expected. that may be a good work around strategy but, in my opinion, not a permanent solution.

If there is no passthrough option for PDFs (the gold standard for professional file exchange at the moment in my opinion) designers will have to spend a whole lot more time checking the results of placed files. let me give you an example where this is really annoying or makes it impossible to use APublisher: think of a magazine with 60+ pages. layouting the content in AP is easy and really fun – as long as you don't have to place ads from external service providers. you can check one ore two ads for sure but in normal cases you have to place a ton of them... at that point I really have to be able to rely on my layout software to handle those PDFs as they are (passthrough?). So for that kind of projects, I sadly can't use AP at the moment...

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17 hours ago, PeterB. said:

just tried that with no success... they still are changed to the default versions. If I replace those characters with the glyph browser, they are automatically set to the specific stylistic set. I guess thats how opentype fonts should work. 

No, stylistic sets should be Off by default per the OpenType specs. Some fonts will have the same glyphs in another feature like fina or calt which are On by default. Which would both do what you describe.
Regardless you should be able to disable all of them.

What font is it?
I would like to take a look at it.
Can you send it to me via PM?

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OK. I took a look at the Raleway Bold from Google Fonts.
There are two OpenType features in that font affecting those characters.
Stylistic Alternates (salt) and Stylistic Set 01 (ss01).
Both of those features are normally Off by default.
Either one will change to the characters you want.
They both work the same in this case.

So I am not sure how these are being forced On in AI.
Should be able to disable either of them and directly insert a glyph.

OpenType features settings do not survive in a PDF.
So if you have editable text use the Typography panel to re-apply the OpenType features.

 

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11 hours ago, LibreTraining said:

OpenType features settings do not survive in a PDF.

that's really interesting... I did a bit of testing, too. when I place the logo in InDesign it appears correctly. I can export this document to pdf and within this pdf file it also appears correctly (using acrobat). but as soon as is open this exported file in illustrator/designer I have the same "wrong" typeset in both applications... how do the stylistic sets survive in a PDF then? what a weird thing... 

but regardless of this opentype letter thing, InDesign in that case does behave the right way for a layout software. publisher should also have an option to preserve placed layouts. hopefully serif will find a solution for that.

thank you for investigating!

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@PeterB.
In another thread discussing discussing a similar issue with ligatures I tested embedding the full font rather than just a subset. That succeeded in displaying the correct characters.
So you could also try that.

Another option would be to create a custom font and avoid the OpenType issues.
Raleway is free and open source so we can do what we want.
So let's give that a try ...

Stylistic Set 01 replaced 10 characters.
SS01-character-replacements.png.8b080b145ff41af0d84237b8b4da0499.png

So I just copied those characters into the original actual Unicode locations.
Fixed the side bearings.
Deleted OpenType features Stylistic Alternates (salt) and Stylistic Set 01 (ss01).
(so AI and ID won't try to set them, and they are not needed anyway)
Changed the font name to: RalewayLogo
Note: that is a Regular style - do not use any Bold buttons
Installed and tested in LibreOffice.
RalewayLogo-font-test.png.0b64c49a94f824924a384ed9e3edf482.png

Looks OK.

Give it a try: RalewayLogo.ttf

You can probably set-up that in APub as a font replacement and not even have to change the original files.

Let me know how it works out.
 

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12 hours ago, LibreTraining said:

I tested embedding the full font rather than just a subset.

what setting do you mean with embedding the whole font? I normally set the value in every software to 100% (see screenshot from illustrator as example, other software is similar). As far as I know this should embed the whole font, right? but this does not solve the problem... wether out of illustrator nor designer. can you eventually make a screenshot of your settings?

creating a custom font from a normal font to solve that behavior.... I don't know but that doesn't seem to me as a practical all day solution ;) i solved it with converting the text to curves for now. this works quite ok for logos and smaller files.

Bildschirmfoto 2019-07-12 um 10.26.37.png

 

What I actually don't really understand is why an .eps file works... If I save the Logo as .eps file then everything looks as it should. But isn't eps basically the precursor of pdf? 

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On 7/12/2019 at 4:47 AM, PeterB. said:

what setting do you mean with embedding the whole font?

In the Affinity products, you would embed the entire font by unchecking "Subset Fonts" in the "More" panel when exporting the PDF:

image.png.fbfbfd1b83df28ce936dabf83fbd3ca8.png

 

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