Affont 1.1.6: type on the text, smart tools up front, ligatures in Kerning and a welcome guide for Affinity

A big one, shaped by the feedback of type designers who use Affont every day. What’s new:

Type right on the text

In Font, Kerning, Spacing, Ligatures and Preview you click on the large text and type right there, with a cursor, selection and paste. Double-click a letter to try its alternates in that spot.

Smart spacing and smart kerning, right where you need them

• Smart spacing… and Smart kerning… now sit next to ab · AB · Ab · 1), always with their name.
• A new Texts menu next to every text: your usual sample text, control strings (nnann · HHAHH), Hamburgefonstiv, pangrams, kerning pairs, figures, a paragraph or all your glyphs, in the language you choose. Also in Preview.

Ligatures and alternates in Kerning and Spacing

• Type “ff” and the ligature shows up, like in any app. Any glyph can be typed by its name with a slash: /a.alt1, /f_f, /T.ss01.
• Kern and space them like any letter. The pair list and the spacing table find them by name (“f_f”, “a.alt1”).
• Smart spacing and smart kerning include them too.

Handwriting fonts

A new Random rule for alternates (and All random in Ligatures): each letter takes turns between its forms, so two neighbours never look the same. There’s a new Guide section about handwriting and script fonts.

Glyph editor

• A Layers panel with booleans: Unite, Subtract, Intersect, Exclude. Copy and paste shapes between letters.
• A magnet that snaps what you move to the guides and to the horizontal or vertical center.
• Shorter toolbar: Paste (vectors, inside and the size) is one menu; fill, outlines and LSB/RSB handles live in the eye menu; ⌘/Ctrl+0 centers the view.
• Dragging the LSB keeps the letter still. Clear empties a letter.

Several letters at once

In Font, select several letters (⌘/Ctrl + click, Shift + click) and use Baseline… to sit them on the baseline together, even ones with an irregular bottom.

Batches from Affinity

• Every send from the same document comes out at the same size.
• All-caps fonts named as lowercase no longer come out smaller.
• “All in order” fills only the shapes without a name and understands the comma itself. The vertical bar | is accepted.

Vietnamese and names in any script

• The đồng sign (₫), and in Build accented the tone mark sits beside the circumflex (ấ ầ ẩ), the way Vietnamese is written.
• Export no longer fails with font names in Vietnamese, Japanese or Thai.

A welcome guide for Affinity

WelcomeToAffont.af walks you through everything, step by step, with a practice font ready to send. Open it from the last step of the welcome or from the Guide.

Also new

• In Preview, the OpenType features are in one Features menu, with All and None.
• On Mac, installed fonts show up in every app right away.

After updating, import the Affinity scripts again only if you want the đồng sign in the template’s Vietnamese set:

1. In Affont: Settings ▸ Scripts for Affinity (.afscripts)…
2. In Affinity: Script Library ▸ ▾ menu ▸ Import scripts… (delete the old “Affont” category first).

Thanks to ikiiko, JOL and Ronny Studio for the detailed feedback behind this version.