I love inkscape. It's my main vector editing software.
I have a strange problem with installed fonts that I can't understand. Some of the font weights are missing in inkscape but they are accessible in AI.
For example I have font that comes in 4 weights - light, medium, bold, black but in inkscape the black version is missing and I'd rather use inkscape for kerning and text editing than AI /I hate AI I can work with AI but I hate it/
Anyone knows a solution for this?
I read an article about disabling faux bold and italics but it doesn't explain how to do that..

Which version of Inkscape? Which OS? Can you let us know some of the specific fonts that are causing issues (in particular, if any are freely available so that we can test for ourselves).

Are you trying to access the fonts from the dropdown at the top of the canvas, or via the Text and Font dialog? I seem to recall an issue (in 0.48.x?) whereby some weights wouldn't appear in the dropdown, but were available via the dialog.

Thanks for the reply. It's my first time reaching the forums for help. I'm running Inkscape 0.91 on Windows 7 Ultimate. There's no difference between dropdown or Text and Font menu - weights are missing on both. I rarely use free fonts and if use them I use fonts from respected and well known foundries, because most of the free fonts are not quite good for professional work. For example I'm working with Brandon Grotesque - 4 weights installed, light, medium, bold, black and the black is missing. The font is OTF.

SVG does not handle fonts that well as AI. I work a lot with fonts hence, I chose 0.48.5.

Difference is quite notable on ligatures and similar finesses offered within fonts, which are unfortunately unavailable in IS. Aside of that, some changes were made in 0.91 regarding the fonts but it would be wiser to search for some other articles since it`s not that easy to shrink all that info into a few sentences. Of course, if you`re interested into typography within IS.

I noticed that too, no ligatures and alternative characters at all or at least too few. I tend to switch between AI and IS depending on the task, but when it comes to pure vector creating from scratch IS beats AI by miles. Maybe I should grab a copy with 0.48.5 too.
Thanks for your reply.

Version 0.92 will bring support for OpenType features, also see http://tavmjong.free.fr/blog/?p=1442 for more info. You can download development versions (which are still buggy otherwise, so be careful) from here: https://inkscape.org/en/download/ (scroll down to the 'Development versions' section).

I just found a great tip to get bold font when it's not avalaiblein InkScape ! It's a manual process but it works well :
select "outline" at the left bottom and choose the color of your font. Then select the outline style to increase to 1 pixel : that's done ! your font became BOLD !!
Also CTRL+i works in my case, instead of the italic is'nt provided.

So let's know !

It's not so good so get the classic bold access, but better than nothing...

G