[MPEG-OTSPEC] Relaxation of CFF2 hint requirements (?) in variable fonts

Skef Iterum skef at skef.org
Mon Feb 5 11:23:29 CET 2024


A short proposal to relax the requirements on stem hints in a CFF2 
variable font should be attached. These changes (or clarifications -- 
see below) are comparable to allowing overlap in CFF2; what could easily 
be normalized away in a static context winds up being needed in a 
variable context.

Note that these changes do not affect the storage format, and one could 
argue that one or even both is compatible with the current standard 
(given that nothing much is said on the subject). Still, they may raise 
issues about versioning. My sense is that if a font built according to 
the clarifications is rasterized on a system assuming total ordering of 
stems and/or no duplicate stems, the result will be as if some stems are 
missing rather than overt distortion of a glyph. And the need for such 
stems is relative rare, so only a few glyphs in a typical font are 
likely to be affected.

We can talk about versioning questions as part of the discussion.

Skef
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: cff2hintorder.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 11704 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.aau.at/mailman/private/mpeg-otspec/attachments/20240205/642f1ef5/attachment.pdf>


More information about the mpeg-otspec mailing list