OpenType Support

[humblenations]

Humblenations, whether you want to refer to it wrongly as a bug, or a feature enhancement/improvement, which it actually is - you can now use your multi-weighted fonts in v9.

But that's really the point, isn't it? Because you call it an improvement rather than a bug fix because then I'll have to pay for the software. I'm really annoyed to have to do this. VERY ANNOYED. Because it should have worked in the first instance - like every other piece of windows software!!!! Even wordpad or paint. I've just checked. So Xara isn't as good as Paint at handling fonts?! No it's because the type handling engine of Xara was BROKEN. Because it didn't even reference the Windows Kernel properly.

I mean how blinkered are you all?

I've not changed since Xara Pro 5 because of this issue. Ligatures would be nice as well. But that can wait till version 15 or whatever. I don't actually do anything massively complex with the software, as I design book covers, and there have been NO improvements or BUG FIXES worth upgrading for now till now.

I actually went out and bought an old copy of Illustrator which I boot up and and use to make ligatures and use the fonts that DON'T WORK IN XARA and export as PDFs and pull them in because of the problem. This really slows down my work process. And it would be great to be able to use ALL my fonts that I have in XARA because it WORKS!!!!!

Being able to use all my fonts that work on everything else in Windows is a FEATURE?!?!?!?

So now I have to pay for something so I can use my fonts properly that I've paid for?

You have to be kidding right?

I find this incredibly cynical of Xara.

[humblenations]

No free upgrades for people wanting proper font support then? Now they've sorted it out???

[gwpriester]

I could be wrong, and please correct me if I am. But as I stated in my review http://xaraxone.magix.net/XDPX9FL/page-layout.htm the problem of font support was a Microsoft limitation not a Xara attempt to make your life unpleasant. When Xara read my review for accuracy, this position was not challenged.

This limitation seems to have been relaxed and now you can have as many font styles as the font possesses.

Ligatures and glyphs are high on my list of text features I would like to see, and I think support is not far off. But I do not consider the lack of support a bug. I view it as an opportunity.

The question you need to ask yourself is, how important is this support for more than four styles? And if you answer very important, then upgrade. If you are a serious designer it will be money well spent. If you are a advanced user or hobbyist and this is too much to spend, then switch to the Creative Cloud and use InDesign or Illustrator. These applications cost a lot more but they support as many styles as come with the font plus ligatures and glyphs.

As Pete has patiently pointed out, this is not a bug and hence you are not entitled to a bug fix.

[mwenz]

And even with known bugs, I do not believe that each and every bug can be eradicated in an application during a version number cycle. I have my pet bug that is not still fixed...but if it were to happen in say in a patch to X9 or in the next version, I don't believe I am therefore entitled to a freebie.

Adobe wrote their own text engine(s) and do not rely upon the OS. This is both a good and bad thing. The good is it circumvented OS limitations for both Win and Mac users. One bad thing was it also exposed bad fonts that otherwise would go through a RIP just fine, but Adobe applications cannot load and use.

Serif supported OT features beginning in 2010. It could have been a bit sooner. Still, they are holding at Unicode 5.2, 6.2 was released at the end of 2012 and Unicode 6.3 is coming out soon. Xara should follow suit.

Mike

[jwhitham]

Comparing what Wordpad or MS Paint are doing to what the Xara render engine is doing is comparing apples to oranges. Those applications are just calling GDI - not Kernel, that plays no part - to render some text for them at a given position. Xara has to fetch the glyph outline and use it as a vector graphic. Try getting Wordpad or Paint to fill text with a bitmap, or 3D extrude it.

WRT ligatures, I can use the ae, oe and fl ones from fonts where they are present, are you guys referring to some kind of custom ligatures?

[gwpriester]

jw - There are some fonts that have an extensive number of glyphs and some ligatures aside from the more common ones, that do not appear when you try to find them in Character Map. InDesign and Illustrator do offer support for these. My screen capture is from Illustrator CS5.5

I should point out, however, that unless someone is really into decorative typography or heavy duty typesetting, there are prescious few occassions that call for these.

[jwhitham]

Thanks Gary. That's interesting, I just installed Scriptina and wound up with two fonts. One called Scriptina - Alternates shows as empty in Character Map, but if I type say "th" in Xara and select that font it applies the correct ligature.

[gwpriester]

I did not know that. Cool.

[jwhitham]

Sort of. Not being able to see them in Character Map means you have to know what is available in order to use them.

[humblenations]

I should point out, however, that unless someone is really into decorative typography or heavy duty typesetting, there are prescious few occassions that call for these.

Decorative Typography ... as in graphic design with words in it. All typography is decorative. Or should be and there are certain letters placed together don't work ... let me give you an example 'i' proceeded with an 'f'. So it's not all making things look fancy. Sometimes its about balancing words nicely. Open Type supports it. Open type has been around for ages. Most new commercial typefaces come with ligatures to improve the balance. Some even do some fun things. Xara, a graphics applications, which has a text tool does not.

Oh, it's fine you don't need it ... isn't really a good answer for any designer worth their salt. It's really evident by it's omission in the software. It stands out like a sore thumb to me. And by saying 'precious few occasions' shows what you know about the design of typography, Gary. You can sing the praises of Xara all you like but spreading that sort of disinformation and propaganda, because it fulfils your narrative, is dangerous. You should spread good knowledge about design to help other people out. Increase the knowledge not the ignorance.

So here go Gary, I'm a helpful bod ... go learn about Ligatures yourself and then enlighten others, here's a good start: http://opentype.info/blog/2012/11/20/whats-a-ligature/