No document-wide replace font?

[SoftZoom]

I suppose this is one of those "When you know where to look for it, it's simple" things, but it still baffles me that this is not a function that also happens to be in the font manager - a place where it makes sense to perform functions like that.

[Lorox]

Maybe this all sort of works more or less if you have actually assigned Text Formats to all your type before. If not (as it often the case in smaller documents) it still is a real pain in the butt to have missing fonts reliably substituted all over the document.

To me it seems absolutely pointless of Publisher to stop short of a possibility to (lastingly) "Assign“ the substitutions documentwide once you've made your choices in the Font Manager.

Up to now I thought I was missing something or making a mistake somewhere – I actually cannot believe that this is "officially" still so awkward! I don't think that the whole Find and Replace business "on the document's surface" is a professional solution. What's needed is a "Find and Replace" within the internal document data which is triggered by an "Apply" button in the Font Manager – not more, but also no less.

This is such a simple concept that it is definitely not useful to excuse its "non-implementation" by referring to some alleged "semi pro"-ness of Publisher. Just look at all of Serif's announcements and the way the app is advertised: it IS meant as a professional tool for print design after all and as such it is quite a shame that this – actually not so special – feature still poises such a problem in the everyday workflow.

Don't get me wrong: I DO love the Affinity apps and I really DO try to make the transition from "Big A" but things like these tend to put my patience to a test nevertheless...

[F+C]

Agreed.

I think Affinity needs to work with an experienced production consultant. Someone who has spent many years in the print industry and agencies actually producing printed material in the real world. There are really good reasons why Adobe stuff does what it does (although they've added a ton of other features) - it's not just a feature.

They could hire me, I started with Quark 2.11 . . . and paste-up!

[Lorox]

8 minutes ago, F+C said:

I think Affinity needs to work with an experienced production consultant. Someone who has spent many years in the print industry and agencies actually producing printed material in the real world.

A good point! I have found myself thinking likewise, too. Not only as Publisher is concerned – also in Designer there are certain features missing that at least one or two from a pool of 5–10 "real world" Illustrators would point their fingers to after not too long a time working with the app (say: Line Width Tool, Image Tracer etc.).

IMHO software designers just tend to think differently from "design designers" – about which features people would need (or not) and what's "cool" to have for some reason or other. And, of course, HOW thing are done (or should be done) – meaning how to structure a certain workflow through the design of the app's UI. I felt – for example – that some places for settings in the apps seem to be a bit almost randomly scattered over the UI although – in a "design designer's" way of thinking and working – they should actually be in closer logical vicinity.

Being a real expert in one field of knowledge unfortunately sometimes prevents you from seeking solid advice on subjects you have not really all the experience and the sense for possible inconsistencies in.

[F+C]

very true.

In fact, most professional design work is pretty boring. After the conceptualization it's really about execution, and that's the difference between pro's and normals.

A pro is more interested in speed of layout, stability.

It's more about getting 15 ad's out by 5, or that 75 page AR that the client has been slow at getting the source material to you so you're 2 weeks behind and it needs to get to proofing next morning and it's 3pm.

You don't get a chance to do all the wacky things that the programs allow you to do in real-life.

[Stepaan]

I ran into this problem today and it still didn't work in Publisher 😄

[CreativeCortex]

And now I need the feature and all these years on it's still not available. Can't 'find and replace' because the font isn't installed on the system, can't apply in Font manager. How many years has it been? Such a pity.

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, CreativeCortex said:

And now I need the feature and all these years on it's still not available. Can't 'find and replace' because the font isn't installed on the system, can't apply in Font manager. How many years has it been? Such a pity.

If you're using Publisher, you can do it via Find and Replace.

[loukash]

11 minutes ago, CreativeCortex said:

Can't 'find and replace' because the font isn't installed on the system

1. Find & Replace → Format → Font → Font Family → "All Fonts" popup menu → Missing Fonts

[CreativeCortex]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

If you're using Publisher, you can do it via Find and Replace.

I just tried it not 15 minutes ago. So I'd be glad to be shown what I'm doing wrong. In find and replace, you click the cog next to find, choose format, then search for your font... except it can only search for installed fonts, not fonts that are cited in the document but not installed. So, it's as has been previously explained, if the font isn't installed on the system you can't find and replace them. But I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong.

[CreativeCortex]

2 minutes ago, loukash said:

1. Find & Replace → Format → Font → Font Family → "All Fonts" popup menu → Missing Fonts

Aha. Thank you. Now that IS the answer. Much appreciated!!!

[Lorox]

21 hours ago, loukash said:

Find & Replace → Format → Font → Font Family → "All Fonts" popup menu → Missing Fonts

Ah, thank you for pointing out this solution – I guess I never would have thought looking at it this way.

Nevertheless, there definitely should be a way in (at least) Publisher to do documentwide missing font replacement via the app’s "Font Manager“ as it is there where missing fonts are listed on the first hand and where you then would naturally want to resolve the issue wholesale (instead of "hopping“ from one incidence within the doccument to the next).

In InDesign you have been easily able to do documentwide font replacement for ages...

On the other hand I don't quite see an issue with not finding fonts that are actually not installed on the system (or which maybe are in fact present on the drive but not activated by a Font Manager i.e. like FontExplorer X, Suitcase et al.) This seems only natural to me – when you encounter a missing font that's not currently active on the system you'll just have to ensure that it is by installing/activating it. And if you haven’t got it you cannot use it... you wouldn't really expect otherwise, would you?

[loukash]

2 hours ago, Lorox said:

there definitely should be a way in (at least) Publisher to do documentwide missing font replacement via the app’s "Font Manager“

I agree. Publisher's "Font Manager" still feels like an "unfinished afterthought"…  

2 hours ago, Lorox said:

I don't quite see an issue with not finding fonts that are actually not installed on the system (or which maybe are in fact present on the drive but not activated by a Font Manager i.e. like FontExplorer X, Suitcase et al.)

I'm using the Typeface app on MacOS Ventura. Its auto-activation works flawlessly with Affinity apps if enabled. (Usually I keep it disabled.)
https://typefaceapp.com/help/articles/activation

[Lorox]

18 hours ago, loukash said:

I'm using the Typeface app

@loukash Thank you for mentioning this app which I didn't know up to now! Judging by what’s to learn on its website it actually might be quite promising... Now that FontExplorer X has been discontinued I had been asking myself for a while how to comfortably manage my zillions of fonts in the longer run...

Actually I, like you, don't care too much about auto-activation of fonts. I rather prefer to be reminded of what fonts might be missing for a certain document and then activate them myself. I feel like I'm having better control/overview this way (hopelessly old school, I guess...).

And yeah, I share your opinion about Publisher's ”Font Manager“ – it's like they stopped somewhat in the middle with this tool/panel.

[loukash]

9 minutes ago, Lorox said:

Now that FontExplorer X has been discontinued

Yeah, I'm also migrating from FEX, having the last free version 4 still running on my El Capitan Macs. Typeface was my logical choice because it can at least partially import FEX sets and convert them to "tags". Still though, compared to FEX, it's one step forward, two steps aside and three steps back in usability.  

15 minutes ago, Lorox said:

I feel like I'm having better control/overview this way (hopelessly old school, I guess...).

I'm literally old school because every now and then I need to open or convert documents from the 1990s where I was using old Type 1 or even Mac TrueType fonts which may appear slightly differently from their updated OTF/TTF counterparts. Therefore I want to make deliberate choices which exact version of a font to activate. Autoactivation is not smart enough.

[tombro]

Here we are in 2024 and this is still an issue. I found this thread while trying to substitute a new OpenType font for an old PS one. Off to try the 'Find & Replace' method.

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, tombro said:

Here we are in 2024 and this is still an issue.

I fully expect that it will continue to be an ‘issue’, because the app needs to maintain a distinction between substitution (so an alternative can be used when the specified font isn’t available) and replacement (so a different font can be specified as the preferred font).

[Lorox]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

I fully expect that it will continue to be an ‘issue’, because the app needs to maintain a distinction between substitution (so an alternative can be used when the specified font isn’t available) and replacement (so a different font can be specified as the preferred font).

Maybe – but honestly: this certainly isn't rocket science, is it? Why can't there be an option of alternatively choosing "(Temporarily) Substitute“ or "Replace (and keep replaced font)“ when dealing with missing fonts? To me it just seems to be a question of either saving this particular choice with the document or not. Temporary substitutions then would only be "remembered“ as long as the document is open and will be "forgotten“ once you close it while replacements will be saved just like any other regular changes you make in a document.

I'm no software developer, but it seems quite straightforward (not to say easy), anyway.

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, Lorox said:

Temporary substitutions then would only be "remembered“ as long as the document is open and will be "forgotten“ once you close it while replacements will be saved just like any other regular changes you make in a document.

That’s what happens at the moment. It’s just that the mechanisms are different: substitutions are always temporary, replacements are always permanent.

[Lorox]

1 minute ago, Alfred said:

That’s what happens at the moment. It’s just that the mechanisms are different: substitutions are always temporary, replacements are always permanent.

Yes, but you have to do it manually one by one instance(!) (or maybe a bit more summarily via Find & Replace – but that's a bit of a detour for me). I was thinking of a general way of doing it documentwide in one go for any one font via the "Font Manager". That is, any specific (missing) font weight will need separate attention as specific replacement fonts may not have exactly the same font weights as the missing font. Meaning you cannot globally substitue/replace Helvetica by Futura as the available weights are quite different in each font family.

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, Lorox said:

you have to do it manually one by one instance(!) (or maybe a bit more summarily via Find & Replace – but that's a bit of a detour for me)

I think you’ll benefit from whatever time you can spend on that detour. Find & Replace has a huge range of options (e.g. for finding missing fonts, or finding a particular format or character style) so there’s a lot to gets to grips with but it’s very flexible.

Affinity Publisher 2 Help: Find and Replace panel

[Lorox]

@Alfred Well, yes – you may be right. I admit that I haven't really used the Find and Replace Panel as I probably should have... But I'm actually trusting your advice and I will try to do so in the future. So thanks a lot for pointing this out to me – just have to break my habit a bit, I guess...!

[Firelock]

I found a way to replace a missing font. If you open the Preflight panel one of the errors that should be showing is for missing fonts. You can click on the button "Fix" next to the font it will show a button "locate" which you can use to find and highlight the characters, or spaces in my case, of the missing font. Once the characters are highlighted you can specify a replacement using the font menu.

[Lorox]

6 hours ago, Firelock said:

I found a way to replace a missing font. If you open the Preflight panel one of the errors that should be showing is for missing fonts. You can click on the button "Fix" next to the font it will show a button "locate" which you can use to find and highlight the characters, or spaces in my case, of the missing font. Once the characters are highlighted you can specify a replacement using the font menu.

 

Like @Alfred's hint to Find & Replace this may be an OK enough way to deal with the issue when you have not so extensive files with just a few instances of missing fonts. It will help you out then, I guess. And yes: sometimes you will want to check where exactly one or the other of those missing fonts are used in your document and only then decide on whether or not substitute/replace them.

My initial complaint, however, stemmed from my experience of being an InDesign user for many years and thus being used to ID's simple "no fuss" way of being able to – documentwide – just assign substitution fonts for missing fonts found while opening a file (or at any time via a missing fonts dialog). Applicable usage cases might be replacing an OS provided version of – say – Helvetica with a third party „Helvetica New“ or replacing an older TT version of a font with its more recent OT version.

In ID a thus substituted/replaced font became the "officially" assigned font for any related text element in the document once you saved it. As this is exactly what I normally want(ed) in such a situation I've always appreciated this way of dealing with it.

Obviously, it might also be helpful if you could make yourself to consistently apply custom text styles (character and paragraph) to all of your text elements. Having set up (and actually applied…) these you could simply change (and thus substitute/replace) any font documentwide later (be it actually missing or not) just by editing the text style it's used in.
But then again, this might not work with documents you'll receive from other users who maybe don't like to use text styles at all… and honestly: even against better knowledge I myself tend to just format individual text elements on the fly more often than not when in the more artist/designer mood (as opposed to the more systematic "production" mood)...