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Weird font issue
#1
Hello--I am stumped!
I have a font in my GIMP fonts search path that would show a weird character instead of a plain space in Gimp, ... apparently depending on whether or not other 2 fonts (system .fon, not .ttf nor .otf) are also loaded by Gimp.
1. Screenshot showing the issue     : the two topmost fonts are 8514fix.fon and 8514Oem.fon, living in C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-font-bitmap-fixed_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_db04d3f548508fd9--they don't appear in usual font menus, nor in windows character map
2. After first bumping into the issue, I tried again with the same font 
.zip   great-western-way.zip (Size: 47.28 KB / Downloads: 293) , it shows in menu as Old Street Signs:  8514fix.fon and 8514Oem.fon weren't on Gimp font menu and I was able to insert and edit the text without trouble (I have the .xcf file with the normal text)
3. However, they are back now--both in win7 and win10)--and so is the trouble.
Please: is there a way to prevent Gimp from loading those fonts (or bitmap fonts in general--I don't use them)? Or, if the trouble isn't actually related with bitmap .fon fonts, is there some workaround not involving tagging the spaces as Times New Roman or whatever--thus disturbing the font's line-height?
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#2
I tried the font, results as follows

In Gimp 2.10 the font (Old Street Signs) doesn't show up at all.

In Gimp 2.8 the font shows up and works correctly. The only issue is that the space is very narrow. Need 2 spaces where there should be just 1.

The fonts 8514fix and 8514oem are present in both 2.8 and 2.10

I suspect the problem is with the Old Street Signs font. Maybe someone who knows about fonts can confirm this.
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#3
Those 8514 are .fon files and belong to the Windows system, Raster fonts I think used in terminals.

Same result as Blighty the Old_Street_Signs.ttf does not show up in Gimp 2.10 (Linux or Win10)

Try the attached, I have run it through FontForge, fixed a couple of things but still not 100%

It is renamed internally so will show in the font list as Old-Street-Signs-Bold. Should be no conflicts with the old file.

The font only has capitals (upper and lower case are identical) and nothing else other than the space character and the copyright symbol. Anything else will use the default font (I think)

edit: If the attached does not work, it will be a language issue, works in English but not in..(put your language here)
Reworked the file, now as an otf:
Looks like this in Gimp 2.10/Win10 : https://i.imgur.com/rktDxZk.jpg Compared to the sample file that comes in the zip.


Attached Files
.zip   Old-Street-Signs.otf.zip (Size: 11.1 KB / Downloads: 151)
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#4
Hello and many thanks!
I make a stupid mistake, as I was having issues with TWO FONTS--as you all very rightly say, the trouble with Old Street Signs is that it worked fine in 2.8 and doesn't show in 2.10.
The font with  issues when those raster fonts are present, and not otherwise, is 
.zip   old_letterpress_type.zip (Size: 9.94 KB / Downloads: 201) ,--the one shown in the imagine from my prevous post.
I begin to gather that one should download and install Fontforge, if wishing to deal with font trouble... Until now, I had made shift quite nicely with Gimp, with a dash into Inkscape to adjust weight/make inlines--but, apparently, 2.10 has introduced new incompatibilities, not to to be solved by replacing FancyFontSerif with FancyFontSans or vice versa...
Thanks again!

Just replaced Old Steet Sign with the new version--works like a charm.
Thanks so much.
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#5
old_letterpress_type.ttf ?

Font maker forgot the space character Wink 


Looks like this in  FontForge https://i.imgur.com/Vpdplas.jpg Not many characters in that font.

Fixed in the attached file, renamed so there should be no confusion.


Attached Files
.zip   Old-Letterpress-Type.otf.zip (Size: 9.36 KB / Downloads: 157)
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#6
(10-10-2018, 08:19 AM)rich2005 Wrote: Font maker forgot the space character Wink 
Thank you again!
However, your kind explanation rather enhances one part of my concern: WHERE does Gimp fish for the characters lacking in a font, and is there any way to direct it to a particular font?
Too many of the fonts I deal with--for covers of books between 1800 and 1940, I would choose first editions HC when available and decent-looking--are like those last two, lacking most of unicode, and very often with hardly any punctuation. I took it for granted that, in such a situation, Gimp would default to 'Standard' (in windows, it looks like Segoe or some other ugly sans font), as it does when one opens with text tool a layer in some font one has removed. However, my experience with Old Letterpress hints that Gimp would simply cicle through all fonts in alphabetical order until it comes to one showing the missing character...
Maybe the question is chiefly academic, as the workaround is to to select the guilty character and choose a likely font for it, but I am still curious.
Thanks again for your very kind and useful trouble.
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#7
Quote: ..the workaround is to to select the guilty character and choose a likely font for it, but I am still curious.

That is about all you can do. As far as I know, if the character is missing you get that little square which gives the position in the table.

If the font is missing, a default font is used. I always assumed it is "Sans" as this bit of Gimp code.

Code:
/* No font with this name exists, use the standard font, but...
standard_font = g_object_new (GIMP_TYPE_FONT, "name", "Sans-serif",

but what is replaced in my linux computer is 'Standard Symbols' and in a Win10 / Gimp 2.10 the replacement called 'Standard' looks very like Verdana to me. That was the Windows default up to Win7 when Segoeui took over.
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#8
(10-10-2018, 12:08 PM)rich2005 Wrote:
Quote: ..the workaround is to to select the guilty character and choose a likely font for it, but I am still curious.

That is about all you can do. As far as I know, if the character is missing you get that little square which gives the position in the table.

If the font is missing, a default font is used. I always assumed it is "Sans" as this bit of Gimp code.

Code:
     /* No font with this name exists, use the standard font, but...
standard_font = g_object_new (GIMP_TYPE_FONT, "name", "Sans-serif",

but what is replaced in my linux computer is 'Standard Symbols' and in a Win10 / Gimp 2.10 the replacement called 'Standard' looks very like Verdana to me. That was the Windows default up to Win7 when Segoeui took over.
Thanks for your reply--but I am afraid there is a little misconception in it. As shown in this attchment,
     
Gimp does replace missing characteres--the one in the image is from the IPA Extensions, lacking in Sort Mills Goudy. The replacement is some Sans Serif Font--it could be Arial--Segoeui and Verdana both lack as well that particular unicode subset.
Thank you again for your attention.
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#9
Quote:Gimp does replace missing characteres--the one in the image is from the IPA Extensions, lacking in Sort Mills Goudy. The replacement is some Sans Serif Font-

That character is correct, as far as the Sorts Mills Goudy font goes. It is in the phonetic code page (0293) 'small letter ezh with curl'.

Not imported from some other font.

[Image: UmdMJ8s.jpg]

Edit: You might just have to hunt around for a better font. Most seem to have that ʓ character slightly larger than the regular lower case. The serif fonts put a little serif on it,

[Image: 5PwehNO.png]
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#10
(10-10-2018, 01:45 PM)rich2005 Wrote:
Quote:Gimp does replace missing characteres--the one in the image is from the IPA Extensions, lacking in Sort Mills Goudy. The replacement is some Sans Serif Font-

That charachter is correct, as far as the Sorts Mills Goudy font goes. It is in the phonetic code page (0293) 'small letter ezh with curl'.

Not imported from some other font.

Please, I beg to differ. Here is a screenshot of my charmap for the font (in Nexus Font, not beeing installed, I cannot use windows charmap)
   
Present unicode groups: Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended-B, Spacing Modifier Letters, Combining Diacritical Marks, General Punctuation, Currency Symbols, Mathematical Operators.
It can easily checked, for instance, at Dafont, which will show the full charmap (maybe on demand?)
I should mention also:
-- the character is clearly out of tune with the rest--compare, for instance, with EB Garamond or Times New Roman, which do include IPA extensions;
-- in some cases, an application can silently populate missing slots with some default font, even if not present in the font actually in use--just as it can in html, provided some font with the required characters is present on the system: for instance, arabic or asiatic glyphs. In the case of Gimp, I have now and then used 'weird chacters' for effect--had to shuffle to the right font to escape the sans-serif default.
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