Hello folks, I have a very special and obscure situation. I am using inkscape version 1.1.1 on Arch Linux with Gnome Desktop 41.1, but the problem is present since several years on different systems, but I didn't notice it for a long time. Some months ago the situation changed…

It is related to Emojis. I am using svg-files with astrological symbols as text, the fonts I am using are covering this unicode symbols and I do not want to have them replaced with symbols from an other font. But exactly this is happening since some years (in nearly every application and in a very special way in inkscape).

I think it all comes from the definition which symbols are emojis and which not. There is a hand full of symbols which are in use as emojis and as normal "letters" in text - in my case asterisks. Since 2016 the system-wide emoji support is interpreting this symbols as emojis and substituting them with an emoji-font even if the signs are available in the font in use. A behavior I dislike at all, but maybe it is wanted by others for chat applications and similar.

From 2016 to 2020 my system lack a special bitmap-emoji-font and I didn't notice the on going substitutin in the background. I use the Libertinus Sans (former Linux Biolinum) font and the emoji-substitutin has been replacing the asterisks signs of this font with the Dejavu Sans font - it seems Dejavu Sans is in use as an Emoji-fallback font, because of the huge unicode coverage.

Since 2020 a bitmap-emoji-font is present on my system as dependency of gnome-characters. So everything changed. Now I have ugly colorful graphics instead of normal text-signs in many applications including Firefox, Eye Of Gnome,…

… and inkscape? Even worse! Inkscape can not handle the signs from the bitmap-emoji-font and is substituting once again the asterisks with normal letters from the alphabet.

My workaround at the moment: uninstalling gnome-characters and the emoji-font to again fallback on Dejavu font. But this is not satisfying, I want back the signs from my Libertinus font. I have not found any solution yet.

I think this is a misbehavior of the emoji-implementation. But what is the problem? A missing functionality on application side or a bug of the emoji-substitution on system side?

In other words: is it part of the application to accept or refuse the emoji-substitution or is the undemanded emoji-substitution of the font-system a bug itself?

No matter what - I think, as long as inkscape is not able to use the emoji-fonts, it should refuse all emoji-substitution functionality completely (if possible?!). It causes problems in every case.

What do you think, am I right?

Stefan