Why can't Inkscape read some of the glyphs?

[SRobinson]

I have spent many hours trying  to solve this on my own and I am stumped. I am wondering why Inkscape cannot read some of the glyphs in the font I'm using? Also why can I not seem to find the alternate version of the font, where the swashes are located? Would it be because they are not PUA encoded or something? Sorry I am not too familiar with any of this information. I only use inkscape for very basic SVG creating to transfer to Cricut design space. I just wanted to enhance the look of a few designs with swashes and stuff. Thank you!

[brynn]

Welcome to the forum!

Swashes....  Had to look it up:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swash_%28typography%29

If you could share the font, along with an SVG file with the glyphs in it, we might be able to figure it out.  Otherwise, we're just guessing.

I'm not sure....  I don't have much experience using glyphs in Inkscape.  Would we have to have the font installed, to be able to see the glyph?  Well, if the font's free, we could install it for testing.

Inkscape does tend to be a bit picky about fonts.  If they aren't well made, and even if they might work in other programs, they might not work in Inkscape.  Often you can find fonts on a different download site, which is somehow different, and it might work.  I had that experience once myself.

As for some characters in the font working, and other not, I'm not sure if I've seen that before....  But as I said, with the font and the SVG file, we can test.

[Fuzzypeg]

I have experienced the same problem with certain glyphs, specifically, all the zociac signs (U+2648 to U+2653). It seems to be a problem for any font I can find that includes these glyphs: DejaVu Sans, DejaVu Sans Mono, Linux Biolinum G, Linux Libertine G, MS Gothic, Segoe UI Symbol, etc., etc. These all fail to display their own glyphs for these unicode characters, but instead fall back to some other font that has really ugly zodiac signs with boxes around them. I haven't worked out exactly what that fallback font is: it may be the "sans serif" system font, but I'm not sure.
Interestingly, zodiac glyphs worked fine for me in an older version of Inkscape (on another machine, I'd have to haul it out to find what version it was).

[brynn]

Welcome to the forum!

If the glyphs are working in an older version of Inkscape, that would seem to imply potentially a new bug.  But as I answered the original user, this is not an area I'm very familiar with.

If no one else answers in the next couple of days, I would suggest contacting developers.  This message tells how to contact developers, in different ways:  https://forum.inkscapecommunity.com/index.php?topic=628.0  So whichever way is best for you.

Out of curiosity, I searched using Windows Character Map, and don't find these unicode characters in DejaVu Sans, DejaVu Sans Mono, or MS Gothic.  Although I'm on Windows 7, so maybe they just aren't created yet, in Windows 7 ?

In the Inkscape Glyphs dialog, set for DejaVu Sans, I do see a lot of glyphs that don't display (the box with what looks like 4 tiny numbers inside, but they're so small, I'm not positive if they are numbers).

Well anyway, if no one else responds here within a couple more days, please try and contact either developers (per info in the linked message), or more advanced users (via User mailing list or chat, see linked message for details).

Sorry I can't be more helpful 

[flamingolady]

Brynn, just an fyi, when people use 'glyphs' for Cricut and other machines, glyphs aren't always a font character.  What is done is putting a design in lieu of a font character to provide an easy way to design, ex, putting one card of a deck in the A character, another in the B character, etc.   

[brynn]

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean.  I do realize it would have to be converted to a path, before it can be cut.  But if you can't type it with Inkscape,  in the first place.....

Oh!  I just found that glyph in the Glyphs dialog  U+2648, under DejaVu Sans.  It's inside a circle, and also doesn't look like the example in the list.  I'm not really sure what that means though.

[Moini]

SRobinson, when the Mac preview version for 1.0 is out, you definitely need to try it out. It's going to offer support for many more OpenType features.

[Fuzzypeg]

Thanks brynn. I've referred the issue on to the Inkscape bug tracker. https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/issues/675

[brynn]

Thanks Fuzzypeg.  I'll be interested to learn what happens.