Photoshop doesn’t show some characters

[Astronomie-Québec]

When trying to write the cuneiform symbols 𒀭 (AN/DINGIR, Unicode 1202D), 𒀮 (NAB, Unicode 1202E), or 𒀯 (MUL, Unicode 1202F), Photoshop doesn’t display them (neither does Illustrator, by the way). For example, the sequence 𒆚𒀭𒊩 will render as only 𒆚𒊩. I have tried with fonts Assurbanipal, Esagil, and Santakku (all three found at https://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/cuneifont/) as well as Noto Sans Cuneiform (found at https://fonts.google.com/noto/specimen/Noto+Sans+Cuneiform), with the same result.

I suppose you do not support third-party fonts, but all four display these characters properly in InDesign. Why won’t they display in Photoshop or Illustrator?

[Kevin Stohlmeyer · Accepted solution]

Hi @Astronomie-Québec the text engine in InDesign is by far the most advanced in the Creative Cloud. It could be the font is either not supported currently in PS and AI or your applications are not set properly to utilize it. Here is some more information on the Unified Text Engine in Photoshop which lists the languages/scripts supported:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/unified-text-engine.html

[ktaki · Accepted solution]

@Astronomie-Québec It looks like Unified Text Engine does not support the script. I will report this as an issue to see if we can fix the issue. It may take a while. In the meantime, with Photoshop 2023, try switching to "Latin and East Asian Layout".

It is available in the context menu of Paragraph panel. Type layers are always created with "World-Ready Layout" i.e., Unified Text Engine. You need to switch to "Latin and East Asian Layout" manually each time you create a type layer.

[Jeff Arola]

Using the Noto Sans Cuneiform font on macOS Ventura 13.3.1 with Photoshop 2021 (ps ver 22.2) does work with the above symbols, however, Photoshop 2022 (ps ver 23.5.5) and Photoshop 2023 (ps ver 24.3) on the same macOS Ventura 13.3.1 install do not.

Photoshop 2021 (ps version 22.2)

[ktaki]

Yes, this is because Photoshop used to use "Latin and East Asian Layout" as a default composer in 2021 or arlier vesions, and switched to use Unified Text Engine (Wrold-Ready Layout) in 2022 or later versions.

[Astronomie-Québec]

Great! Thank you everyone for your answers! Switching to “Latin and East Asian Layout” worked perfectly, for these characters as well as others I noticed since posting.