Hebrew kerning is way off on Sketch

[elyran2]

Hi, I have the latest version of the font available, and yet the kerning in Hebrew is making this font unusable...

see attached:

are you aware of this issue?

[BoldMonday]

Thanks for reporting!

Three questions about the kerning issue you're experiencing:

1. Does this only happen with IBM Plex Sans Hebrew, or also with other Hebrew fonts in Sketch?
2. Does this happen only in Sketch, or also when setting the same text with IBM Plex Sans Hebrew in other applications?
3. Does this happen only with the SemiBold weight, or also other weights of IBM Plex Sans Hebrew?

[elyran2]

Thanks for reporting!

Three questions about the kerning issue you're experiencing:

1. Does this only happen with IBM Plex Sans Hebrew, or also with other Hebrew fonts in Sketch?
2. Does this happen only in Sketch, or also when setting the same text with IBM Plex Sans Hebrew in other applications?
3. Does this happen only with the SemiBold weight, or also other weights of IBM Plex Sans Hebrew?

Hi, sure thing!
(This font is WAY too good, so I would be very glad when it's fixed)

1. Does not happen with other Hebrew fonts (not on sketch and not on other design applications like Illustrator)

2. The kerning issue does happen (though it's a bit less obvious) in other applications - see an image below of the problem in Illustrator

3. This happens across all the weights, the example below also shows the problem in Regular weight

Hope this helps..

[BoldMonday]

Thanks, I will pass this through to our Hebrew experts so they can have a look.

Can you provide the full technical specifications please?
Your version of macOS, version of Sketch, version and file format of IBM Plex Sans Hebrew.

Thx.

[elyran2]

Thanks, I will pass this through to our Hebrew experts so they can have a look.

Can you provide the full technical specifications please?
Your version of macOS, version of Sketch, version and file format of IBM Plex Sans Hebrew.

Thx.

macOS: 10.15.6
Sketch: 68.2
Illustrator: 24.3

I downloaded Plex's version here from github that says v5.1.3
in Mac's Font Book it says version 1.2 of the font.

It happens both on the OpenType and TrueType files...
(downloaded them both and installed each file format individually to test the issue, happened on both)

[mjabbink]

@BoldMonday Let’s fit into an update schedule.

[BoldMonday]

@mjabbink We are on it. Update will be ready in a week or two.

[elyran2]

Are there any news? The version I'm seeing is still 5.1.3..?

[mjabbink]

@BoldMonday Will this update be ready in the new year? Would be nice to release together with Cyrillic updates. I believe an Arabic update is in the horizon as well but let me know the date for those.

[BoldMonday]

@mjabbink this update is ready and has been delivered already.
But @vpicone prefers to push this update together with an Arabic update that we're currently working on.

[mjabbink]

@vpicone

[elyran2]

it's been almost a year, and still not fixed. that's a real bummer.
This great font is basically unusable in Hebrew.

[mjabbink]

@elyran2 I’m pretty certain this is fixed in the upcoming release. It’s been fixed for quit some time but we've been waiting a series of other fixes so we can do one release all at once.

[mjabbink]

@BoldMonday Can you give an update on any details.

[BoldMonday]

@mjabbink we sent IBM updated Hebrew files back in December. The Arabic update was sent to IBM in February.

[mjabbink]

I’m not sure why these could not be released in March but Plex Next will release these updates along with Japanese and other improvements for font usage.

[BoldMonday]

Fixed in Plex Sans Hebrew v1.3 (part of Release v6.0.0).