Favorite Fontsmith font(s)?

Like Alain, I appreciate the inclusion of accents. However, I do find the range of fonts offered rather redundant with those I already have. I don't know if they were designed to optimize their behavior with Affinity's tools and effects. This is a point that could be a deciding factor when choosing between these fonts and the similar ones already in my collection.

Only the display fonts are of any use to me.
For textframe text I would rather use a free googlefont.

Quote from R C-R

Which ones are display fonts?

The SC fonts.
The FS fonts are mostly "text" fonts.

I deactivated all those free fonts. I created a document using some of them and exported it in PDF format. Now when I try to edit the text with a PDF editor I often get the message that some characters are not included is this font and may be lost.

I know it won't matter to most people, but I don't want to take any chance, so I will not use them anymore.

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Now when I try to edit the text with a PDF editor I often get the message that some characters are not included

Yes, My guess it is auto subsetting the characters to avoid a complete embedding.

All it means is that all editing needs to be done in Affinity and not other software. It was locked to affinity only, clearly so that they can gift it.

Quote from R C-R

This almost certainly is because the licensing terms prohibit embedding the entire font in exported documents, so if you try to use any character not in the PDF to begin with, you would get that warning.

This is exactly what happens. Disabling fonts is quick and easy. Over the years, I have acquired thousands of fonts, both free and paid, so I should be fine.

You need to differentiate here, fonts embedded in a PDF are usually not embedded for editing. Embedded fonts in PDFs are meant to guarantee correct display and printing when the font is missing, not to allow text editing with that font.

So, as soon as you open it for editing, you need to have those fonts installed on your system. No matter if those are .affont, .OTF, .TTF, or even old Type1 fonts.

Quote from Andi05

You need to differentiate here, fonts embedded in a PDF are usually not embedded for editing. Embedded fonts in PDFs are meant to guarantee correct display and printing when the font is missing, not to allow text editing with that font.

^^^ This ^^^

There are four possible ‘embeddability’ settings in a font file, one of which allows editing and another of which only allows printing and previewing.

Quote from Alfred

There are four possible ‘embeddability’ settings in a font file, one of which allows editing

Are you sure about this? That would violate massively almost every single commercial license for fonts out there. Not saying that some apps might have some weird workarounds. But this shouldn't be possible. And I've never heard of this feature either.

Quote from Andi05

Are you sure about this?

Yes, I’m absolutely sure. Please refer to the description here:

OS/2 - OS/2 and Windows metrics table (OpenType 1.9.1) - Typography

The OS/2 and Windows metrics table specification (OpenType 1.9.1)

learn.microsoft.com

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0: Installable embedding: the font may be embedded, and may be permanently installed for use on a remote systems, or for use by other users. The user of the remote system acquires the identical rights, obligations and licenses for that font as the original purchaser of the font, and is subject to the same end-user license agreement, copyright, design patent, and/or trademark as was the original purchaser.

That's the theory. But in fact there's no commonly available official app which creates PDFs with that fsType flag. Maybe in some company wide setup, where they've purchased the licenses for all subsidiaries and employees. So when one marketing department is sending a PDF to another department, latter gets to install the used (and licensed) fonts on their own system for editing.

But I've never ever heard of any app doing so. Because you're simply not allowed to send some fonts to others without being sure that they have a valid license. Even the current standard of sending font files along with the layout files to printing services violates copyright already.

Edit. Found another flag.

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8: Editable embedding: the font may be embedded, and may be temporarily loaded on other systems. As with Preview & Print embedding, documents containing Editable fonts may be opened for reading. In addition, editing is permitted, including ability to format new text using the embedded font, and changes may be saved.

And now I wonder, if any known app can do this? I don't have any access to the latest Adobe apps. Can they?

Quote from Andi05

Found another flag.

And now I wonder, if any known app can do this? I don't have any access to the latest Adobe apps. Can they?

It's perhaps partly a question of application capability, but it's probably also a question of whether any font designers have allowed that.

Quote from Andi05

That's the theory. But in fact there's no commonly available official app which creates PDFs with that fsType flag.

This isn’t particularly about PDF creation. The embeddability licensing rights flag is included in the font file.

Quote from Alfred

This isn’t particularly about PDF creation. The embeddability licensing rights flag is included in the font file.

I see. Interesting. I'm genuinely interested in seeing whether this will truly work within PDF. Could be handy in some workflows. If I find some time I'll see if that flag is enabled in some open source fonts and test it.

Quote from Andi05

If I find some time I'll see if that flag is enabled in some open source fonts and test it.

For any fonts which are distributed with a licence that permits you to modify them, you can use a font editor to enable that flag if it isn’t already enabled.