To remove unwanted swashes in Affinity on Mac, select the affected text, open Window > Text > Typography, and turn off the active Swash option. If the flourish remains, check contextual alternatives and stylistic sets before choosing an export format.

This workflow follows the current Affinity desktop Help Center. The task is to restore ordinary letterforms in editable text, then preserve that appearance when exporting. Affinity supports swashes and other OpenType substitutions, but the available choices depend on the font. OpenType font features

Turn off Swash for the affected text

Start with a precise selection. If only one letter has an unwanted extension, select that letter. If a whole heading uses decorative alternates, select the heading. Affinity supports character formatting at the level of individual letters, words, text ranges and paragraphs. Character formatting

  1. Activate a text tool and select the characters you want to change.
  2. Choose Window > Text > Typography.
  3. Find Swash and deselect the active swash option for the selection.
  4. Inspect the complete word, including its first and last letters.
  5. If you want the same treatment throughout the heading, apply the change to that entire text range.

Affinity documents Swash as the feature that applies an ornate alternative glyph. The Typography panel is available through the same Window > Text > Typography route on Mac and Windows; its available options depend on the glyphs supplied by the font. Typography panel

You can also open Window > Text > Character and use its Typography controls. The Character panel includes Swash, Contextual Alternatives, Character Variants, Stylistic Sets, and Show Typography Panel for additional settings. Using the full Typography panel is useful when the shorter Character controls do not reveal the option you need. Character panel

Keep Hide irrelevant features in mind. This setting hides Typography panel options that are irrelevant to the selected text. Turning it off can help you inspect the panel, but it does not add features or glyphs to the font. Typography panel

If the flourish remains, identify which feature supplies it

A decorative letter is not necessarily controlled by Swash. Affinity exposes several kinds of alternate letterforms, and a font determines which features are available. The following diagnostic order is a practical sequence derived from those documented controls: change one relevant setting, inspect the result, and restore it if it does not solve the problem. OpenType font features, Character panel

What you see What to inspect Reason
A long decorative extension on a letter Swash Affinity describes this as applying stroke extensions or ornate alternate glyphs.
A letter changes according to its place in a word Contextual Alternatives in Character This feature substitutes designs according to position or neighboring glyphs.
Several letters share a decorative treatment Stylistic Sets These apply a font’s alternate characters to the selected text.
A particular character uses another design Character Variants or Alternates These controls provide character variants or substitutes.

These distinctions come from Affinity’s descriptions of the Character panel and Typography panel. They help narrow the search; they do not predict how every font has assigned its decorative forms.

For an illustrative check, use a short neutral heading such as “Sample Notes.” Select the affected word and disable Swash first. If the unwanted ending remains, test Contextual Alternatives next, then any active stylistic set or character variant. Observe the whole word after each change, because contextual alternatives depend on neighboring letters. This is a diagnostic example, not a reported test result.

Avoid disabling every typographic feature at once. A single change gives you a clearer answer about the cause and lets you keep other letter combinations you prefer. Once you find the responsible feature, apply only the necessary change to the intended text range.

When no suitable plain form is available

Affinity’s documented boundary is the font itself: typography options require the necessary glyphs. There is no documented universal control that redraws any decorative letter into a plain one. If the available feature choices do not provide the shape you need, inspect the font’s glyphs or choose another font or font style. OpenType font features

To inspect individual glyphs, choose Window > Text > Glyph Browser. Select the appropriate font family, style and subset. For a controlled replacement, remove the unwanted character, leave an insertion point in its place, and double-click the desired glyph to insert it. Affinity documents this browser as supporting both Unicode characters and alternates. Special characters and glyphs

Check the result after any font change. Affinity warns that some characters can become rectangles or disappear when the replacement font does not define their glyphs. A font change therefore needs a visual check across the complete heading, not just the letter you were fixing. Special characters and glyphs

Check whether the lettering is still editable text

If your lettering has already been converted to curves, its font properties are gone. Affinity states that converted text can no longer be edited conventionally or have its font changed. Typography controls therefore cannot remove a swash from those shapes. Converting to curves

The supported route is to return to the editable text before conversion, using Undo or document history when available, and make the typography change there. If you only have the resulting curves, recreate the short heading as live text and apply the appropriate font and feature settings. Keep an editable Affinity master before preparing further exports.

Converting text to curves preserves the shapes that currently exist. It does not select a simpler alternate. Remove the unwanted flourish while the lettering is text, and consider curves only after the letterforms are correct. That order follows directly from Affinity’s documented loss of font properties during conversion. Converting to curves

Choose an export that preserves the corrected appearance

After fixing the text, choose File > Export > Export. Select a preset, inspect the preview, and adjust the settings for your chosen format. Affinity places common settings in File and additional settings in Advanced; the available controls change with the format. Export dialog

SVG: decide whether the output needs editable text

For SVG, Export text as curves draws the lettering as curves so it displays as intended without the font installed on the viewing device. Affinity documents the trade-offs: increased file size, loss of text editing, and loss of text-to-speech use for that lettering. With the option disabled, text remains text and the viewing device needs the fonts used. Export Settings

For a finished graphic whose lettering must remain visually fixed, exporting the corrected text as curves is a supported choice. If someone needs to edit the wording, retain an editable master and evaluate the text-based SVG in the destination application. The documented font requirement still applies when curves are disabled.

PDF: use the font-handling options

For PDF, the relevant setting is Embed fonts. All Fonts embeds the fonts used in the document. Text as Curves converts all text to curves, removing dependence on installed fonts. Uncommon Fonts embeds only fonts outside the commonly installed group, while No Fonts requires the viewing device to have every font used; the latter option is unavailable with PDF/X compatibility. Export Settings

Choose between embedded fonts and curves according to whether you need text to remain text. Neither choice removes an unwanted alternate: first correct the document, then export it. Do not treat Allow advanced features as a swash switch. Affinity describes that option as controlling features such as stretched artistic text, stroked text, gradients and transparency, and warns that other applications may render some of them incorrectly when importing the PDF. Export Settings

PSD: plan for rasterized lettering

Affinity’s supported-format documentation states that text is rasterized on PSD export. A PSD therefore does not provide editable Affinity text with its typography controls intact. Keep the editable master if you expect to revise the wording or alternate choices later. Supported file formats

Also avoid using Rasterize: Nothing as a blanket preservation setting for PDF, SVG or EPS. Affinity says unsupported elements are omitted under that setting. Unsupported properties rasterizes unsupported elements instead. Inspect the output before relying on either choice. Export Settings

Verify the word and the exported file

Use this final check on the corrected heading:

  • Confirm the intended letters are selected when applying the typography change.
  • Inspect the first, middle and final letters for remaining decorative substitutions.
  • Check spacing and line breaks after changing letterforms.
  • Save an editable master before making curves or rasterized output.
  • Open the exported file in its intended viewer and compare the lettering with the Affinity document.

A successful result is a heading with the intended letterforms in both the editable document and the delivered file. Disable the feature responsible for the flourish, use a different glyph or font when necessary, and choose the export’s text handling deliberately. This keeps the correction understandable and leaves you a practical route for future edits.

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