View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0017844 | Scribus | Fonts | public | 2026-06-12 02:52 | 2026-06-14 19:05 |
| Reporter | JGD | Assigned To | |||
| Priority | high | Severity | major | Reproducibility | always |
| Status | new | Resolution | open | ||
| Platform | M2 15'' MacBook Air/24GB RAM/2TB | OS | macOS | OS Version | 26.5.1 Tahoe |
| Product Version | 1.7.3 | ||||
| Summary | 0017844: Scribus does not detect fonts activated through third-party font managers | ||||
| Description | Scribus only recognises fonts installed on /Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts, after being activated through Font Book.app. Any and all fonts stored on alternative folders and activated through third-party font managers, such as Typeface.app, will not be detected by Scribus. | ||||
| Steps To Reproduce | • Install a third-party font manager; • Set a custom watch folder as the main font library folder in said third-party font manager; • Activate a specific font from said third-party font manager's library; • Attempt to use said font in Scribus 1.7.3; • Fail. | ||||
| Additional Information | I have already paid for Typeface.app, and for Affinity Designer, Photo and Publisher v.1 and v.2, which all work nicely together. I am faced with two options: ditching Typeface.app and forcing myself to use the largely inferior Font Book.app from Apple with the still rough-around-the-edges Scribus 1.7.3, or ditch Scribus and stick with Affinity Publisher v2, and maybe Affinity v.3. Most editorial designers will amass a decently-sized collection of fonts, and not being able to use a decent font manager (something pretty much expected by macOS users due to the long tradition of offerings for that platform such as XTensis Suitcase, Linotype Font Manager and its later incarnation, Monotype Font Manager) is a big no-no. Not doing so will turn away a lot of potential users, especially because there is a potential overlap between subscription-averse users (both when it comes to font subscription services and to subscription supported software such as Affinity v.3, recently acquired by Canva) and F/OSS users. | ||||
| Tags | font activation, font install, font selection | ||||
| Patch | No | ||||
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Scribus allows any additional paths to be added in Preferences. Without access to any of those Font Book apps it is hard to code to work with them unfortunately. |
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Typeface.app is not, sadly, a “Font Book” app. It uses macOS's system-wide font system (which API, I can't say for sure, but certainly it is a current, supported one), and does not store its activated fonts in a system or user folder, they're just… activated and made visible to any and all native macOS apps coded with… whatever (C, Objective-C, Swift, Cocoa, AppKit, SwiftUI, whatever garbage Adobe uses…) in order to display the same fonts as Apple's own. If I were to just add Typeface.app's watch folder (incidentally, it's a folder kept in sync with OneDrive, and I directly added the actual physical folder as stored in “/Users/[my home folder]/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.OneDriveStandaloneSuite/OneDrive - [My University].noindex/One Drive - [My University]/Fonts”, ALL of my fonts would be instantly visible to Scribus and the app would grind to a screeching halt. I can, of course, add a specific watch folder just for Scribus projects, or diligently keep font duplicates alongside each and every one of them, InDesign-package-style. Those options don't address any of the issue I raised, though, they are merely workarounds. So I will rephrase: can Scribus even access macOS's native font APIs, or is it just watching /Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts behind the scenes? I have noticed that it doesn't even support macOS's native File > Open dialog, this despite the fact that other Qt-based apps, such as Audacity 4 Alpha 2 and the perfectly stable FontLab v.6, v.7 and v.8, or other F/OSS heavyweights, like LibreOffice and its VCL framework, have no trouble accessing those. If Scribus wants to reach anything resembling critical mass, behaving as much as possible as a native app is paramount. I was willing to give the very weird but stable v.1.6.x branch a break, but I became much more demanding regarding v.1.7.x. It's much closer to being production-ready for me and my students, and it's now only seemingly missing these two features: advanced font manager support and variable OTF font support (I will address the latter on the relevant tickets and create new discussions on other relevant platforms, such as the IRC channel and the forums). For added context: I was a long-time tester for Affinity apps (pm me for more details on my personal history with parent company Serif if you so wish), and defected after the Canva acquisiton and the Affinity v.3 debacle. I am willing to help but, sadly, I am not a programmer and have a thesis to finish. I do have UX experience, at least at the academic level, and wish to contribute actively to the project (as well as its brethren Inkscape and GIMP, but that's a conversation for another day) ASAP. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-12 02:52 | JGD | New Issue | |
| 2026-06-12 02:52 | JGD | Tag Attached: font activation | |
| 2026-06-12 02:52 | JGD | Tag Attached: font install | |
| 2026-06-12 02:52 | JGD | Tag Attached: font selection | |
| 2026-06-14 11:31 | cbradney | Note Added: 0053828 | |
| 2026-06-14 19:05 | JGD | Note Added: 0053835 |
