Every chatbot told you P22 Franklin Caslon supports Croatian. They were all reading the same wrong sentence off the foundry's own website. The font file says otherwise, and the font file is the one that counts.
What the font actually contains
↑ These four it has. They live in the Western (Windows‑1252) character set that almost every older font ships.
↑ These six it does not. They sit outside Western Latin, so a font can look Croatian‑ready while failing the moment you type čokolada or đak.
The file carries 246 glyphs — a textbook
Western Latin set. Because š and ž happen to be in there, automated
language‑coverage tools tick the “Croatian” box, the foundry page publishes it,
and every model repeats it. Nobody opened the file.
What you get today
“Čuđenje šećera” set in the font as shipped. The Č, đ and ć simply aren't there.
The fix: build the six glyphs
You don't need a different font. Every part needed to make those six letters is already inside this one — and reusing the font's own parts is what keeps the eroded, inked texture consistent.
- Č č Ć ć — the caron is lifted straight out of
Šandš; the acute out ofÁandá. Same ink, same wear. - Đ — needs nothing drawn. The font already has
Ð(Icelandic Eth, U+00D0), which is the identical letterform. It just isn't mapped to the Croatian codepoint. - đ — the only new drawing: one bar, measured off the Eth's own crossbar so weight and overhang match.
The same phrase after patching. Nothing redrawn by hand, nothing that looks bolted on.
The six rebuilt characters on their own.
If you'd rather switch fonts
Then the honest news first: nothing free matches this face. Franklin Caslon was digitised from actual inked impressions pulled in Benjamin Franklin's shop around 1750, so its outlines average 416 points per letter — every eroded edge and ink‑squash needs points to describe. A clean revival sits between 33 and 90. That gap is the texture.
So the fonts below are ranked on skeleton, not surface: stroke contrast and x‑height proportion measured against the reference. Pick one of the top few and add your own texture in Photoshop, or use the patched original and skip all this.
| Face | Contrast | x‑ht/cap | Points/glyph |
|---|---|---|---|
| P22 Franklin Caslon | 2.50 | 0.637 | 416 |
| Special Elite | 0.76 | 0.736 | 278 |
| EB Garamond | 2.75 | 0.621 | 89 |
| Sedan | 2.86 | 0.653 | 82 |
| Texturina | 1.24 | 0.709 | 80 |
| Crimson Text | 2.09 | 0.659 | 75 |
| Fanwood Text | 2.38 | 0.574 | 74 |
Special Elite is the trap: it's genuinely rough (278 pts/glyph) but it's a monoline typewriter face — contrast 0.76 against Caslon's 2.50. Rough is not the same as Caslon. IM Fell is the other trap: perfect texture, and no Croatian characters at all.