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Pat Willener
Pat Willener
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Photoshop Type Tool

Aug 17, 2012 10:56 PM

Windows 7; Photoshop 13 (CS6).

 

Sorry, quite new at Photoshop...

 

I am typing some text in a new layer; no problem so far.  I need to insert some special characters that are not on the keyboard, e.g.

Tōkai

That also was not a problem; I copied the character from the Windows Character Map.

 

Now I want to copy/paste more special characters from the Character Map, e.g.

☏ (U+260F) or

✉ (U+2709).

 

Now all of a sudden this does not work; the pasted characters appear in Photoshop  as a boxed X.

 

The font I have been using was Arial, but when I pasted these Unicode characters, the font automatically changed to Myriad Pro.  Changing the font back to Arial does not alter the boxed X.

 

I took these Unicode characters from the Character Map using font Arial Unicode MS.  That font does not appear in Photoshop.

 

Questions:

  1. are there any Unicode fonts available in Photoshop?
  2. is there any other way to paste such characters into Photoshop?

 

Thank you kindly for any suggestions.

941 Views   8 Replies   Latest reply: Pat Willener, Aug 19, 2012 1:39 AM
 
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  • Pat Willener
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    1. Pat Willener,
    Aug 17, 2012 11:16 PM   in reply to Pat Willener
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    I have circumvented the situation by using the stupid old Wingdings fonts.

     

    However, I still need to know how to insert other Unicode characters that are not part of the Wingdings fonts.

     
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  • Chris Cox
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    2. Chris Cox,
    Aug 18, 2012 12:30 AM   in reply to Pat Willener
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    All Unicode fonts you have installed are available in Photoshop.

     

    The X is because the font you have chosen has no glyph for that character value.

     

    Some other programs will substitute another font when you enter a character that a font does not contain.

     

    You need to choose a font that contains the character you are entering.

     
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  • Pat Willener
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    3. Pat Willener,
    Aug 18, 2012 1:48 AM   in reply to Chris Cox
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    Thank you, Chris; I will do some more testing using a variety of fonts.

     
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  • Pat Willener
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    4. Pat Willener,
    Aug 18, 2012 10:13 PM   in reply to Chris Cox
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    Just a follow-up, in case anybody else ever has the same question...

     

    I tested various fonts, and these are able to display glyphs above U+2660:

    • Microsoft Himalaya
    • Microsoft New Tai Lue
    • Microsoft PhagsPa
    • Microsoft Sans Serif
    • Microsoft Tai Le
    • Microsoft Yi Baiti
    • all Japanese fonts, e.g. MS ゴシック

     

    An interesting thing is that when I insert any of these Unicode characters, both Photoshop and Illustrator automatically switch the font to Myriad Pro, which has all the glyphs between U+2660 and U+2770 missing.

     
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  • Chris Cox
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    5. Chris Cox,
    Aug 19, 2012 12:32 AM   in reply to Pat Willener
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    How did you test them? 

    In what other application?  (again, many, including most from Microsoft, lie about the available characters)

     
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  • acresofgreen
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    6. acresofgreen,
    Aug 19, 2012 12:42 AM   in reply to Pat Willener
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    Pat Willener wrote:

     

    I copied the character from the Windows Character Map.

     

    As Chris has indicated (with a rather unkind choice of words), the Windows character map shows extended characters from some other font if the one selected doesn't have a glyph for them.  At least that has been my experience. I would love to know if there is some handy tool out there to accurately display the actual glyphs in a font under Windows.

     
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  • Pat Willener
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    7. Pat Willener,
    Aug 19, 2012 1:36 AM   in reply to Chris Cox
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    Chris Cox wrote:

     

    How did you test them?

    By selecting the pasted characters (in Ai & Ps), then applying every available font to them (one by one).

     

    One thing I am wondering is why 'Arial Unicode MS' is not showing up in the list of available fonts...

     
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  • Pat Willener
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    8. Pat Willener,
    Aug 19, 2012 1:39 AM   in reply to acresofgreen
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    acresofgreen wrote:

     

    I would love to know if there is some handy tool out there to accurately display the actual glyphs in a font under Windows.

    The Character Map does that, more or less, although it's a bit cumbersome.  Maybe I should do a bit more research on that, and write such a tool if no-one else has done it already.

     
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