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Work with OpenType SVG fonts

OpenType SVG fonts, including emojis, are here in Photoshop. Learn how to use them...

Photoshop supports OpenType SVG fonts and ships with the Trajan Color Concept and the EmojiOne font. OpenType SVG fonts provide multiple colors and gradients in a single glyph. On the Mac OS platform, the Apple Color Emoji font is supported to a limited extent, even though it is not an OpenType SVG font.

OpenType SVG fonts: Multiple colors and gradients

To use OpenType SVG fonts follow these steps:

  1. Create either a paragraph or point-text type layer.

  2. Set the font to an OpenType SVG font. These fonts are marked within the font list.

  3. Type using the keyboard or select specific glyphs using the Glyphs Panel. To view the Glyphs Panel, select Window > Glyphs. Alternatively you can open the Glyphs panel by selecting Window > Workspace > Graphic and Web and then clicking the Glyphs tab.

Note:

While you can simply type letters using OpenType SVG fonts, the full range of most fonts is available only through the Glyphs Panel. Trajan Color Concept, for instance, includes 20 different stylistic sets for each character, such as Silver, Copper, Steel Blue, and Marble which require the Glyphs panel for access.

Emoji fonts

Emoji fonts are an example of OpenType SVG fonts. Using Emoji fonts, you can include various colorful and graphical characters, such as smileys, flags, street signs, animals, people, food, and landmarks in your documents. OpenType SVG emoji fonts, such as the EmojiOne font, let you create certain composite glyphs from one or more other glyphs. For example, you can create the flags of countries or change the skin color of certain glyphs depicting people and body parts such as hands and nose.

Glyphs panel showing EmojiOne SVG font characters

Note:

Recently used emojis appear in the top row of the Glyphs panel.  

Create composite glyphs

For the purpose of illustration, let's consider EmojiOne, an OpenType SVG emoji font. You can composite several EmojiOne OpenType SVG font characters to create glyphs.

For example, you can create the flags of countries or change the skin color of single-person or body part default characters usually colored , or .

Note:

Glyphs in an emoji font, such as the EmojiOne, are distinct from the letters on your keyboard. These glyphs are treated as distinct characters and are available only through the Glyphs Panel rather than the keyboard.

Create flags of countries

The "letters” (A, B, C, D, and so on) in EmojiOne do not correspond to the corresponding keys on the keyboard. When you combine these characters in the Glyphs Panel to make up a country’s ISO code, the two characters form the flag of that country. For example, US gives the American flag, GB gives the British flag, AR gives the Argentine flag, and IN gives the Indian flag.

Flag composite
Combine glyphs to form the flags of countries

Create character variants

Combine single-person default characters; usually colored , , or ; or body parts with any of the five available skin colors (GIDs 356 through 360). The original default character is recolored to match the selected skin color. Such composites currently do not generally work with glyphs having more than one person.

skin-colored-characters
Skin-colored characters (GIDs 356 through 360)

Face-color-composite
Combine single-person characters with skin colors

Notes:

  • The single-person characters or body parts emojis can be matched with any of the skin colored characters only once.
  • Composite glyphs are a font feature. Not all OpenType SVG fonts let you combine characters to create composite glyphs.
  • You can decompose some EmojiOne composites into their constituent characters.

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