[XeTeX] Support of variable OpenType fonts

[David Carlisle]

On Tue, 12 Jul 2022 at 22:03, David Jones <dmj at ams.org> wrote:

> STIX Two is distributed in OTF, TTF, and WOFF2 formats:
>
>      https://github.com/stipub/stixfonts
>
> Only the TTF files are variable fonts.
>
> Only the OTF fonts are distributed via CTAN since none of the TeX engines
> can use the (variable) TTF fonts.
>

luatex (luaotfload) can use variable fonts (as shown in the original
message in this thread) see also https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/630608/1090


> The changes in version 2.13 only affected the variable fonts, not the
> "static" OTF files (although the version numbers were bumped up to match
> the ttf files).  That's why we didn't push a new version of stix2-otf
> package to CTAN.
>
> Cheers,
> David.
> ________________________________________
> From: XeTeX <xetex-bounces+dmj=ams.org at tug.org> on behalf of Bruno Voisin
> via XeTeX <xetex at tug.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2022 10:17 AM
> To: xetex at tug.org
> Subject: [XeTeX] Support of variable OpenType fonts
>
> Does XeTeX support variable OpenType fonts, or is the addition of their
> support planned at some point?
>
> There does not seem to be any clear statement on the net about this, but
> based on
>
>
> https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/355104/tex-luatex-xetex-fontspec-support-for-opentype-variable-fonts
> https://sourceforge.net/p/xetex/feature-requests/28
>
> I have the impression there's no such support yet.
>
> I'm asking because the next version of macOS, currently in public beta,
> includes the STIX Two fonts in a slightly more recent version than TeX Live
> (2.13 b171 for macOS vs 2.12 b168 for TL).
>
> The math font is in OTF format, same as in TL, but the text fonts are in
> variable OpenType format, actually the files
>
>         STIXTwoText[wght].ttf
>         STIXTwoText-Italic[wght].ttf
>
> from the official STIX Two distribution renamed as
>
>         STIXTwoText.ttf
>         STIXTwoText-Italic.ttf
>
> respectively.
>
> Loading the fonts with LuaTeX and luaotfload, use of
>
>         \font\testfont="STIX Two Text"
>         \font\testfont="STIX Two Text Medium"
>
> works and gets the fonts from TeX Live, while
>
>         \font\testfont="[STIXTwoText.ttf]"
>         \font\testfont="[STIXTwoText.ttf]:instance=medium"
>
> gets the font from macOS. Similarly
>
>         \fonttest{STIX Two Text Italic}
>         \fonttest{STIX Two Text Medium Italic}
>
> for TL becomes
>
>         \fonttest{[STIXTwoText-Italic.ttf]}
>         \fonttest{[STIXTwoText-Italic.ttf]:axis={weight=medium}}
>
> for macOS (for some reason instance= doesn't work in this latter case).
> See the attached test file.
>
> So I was wondering whether the same could be achieved with XeTeX.
>
> The question is futile regarding STIX Two (the fonts in TeX Live are
> perfectly fine). But this was my first encounter with variable OpenType
> fonts ever in the real world, and I imagine the use of such fonts will
> become more widespread as time goes.
>
> Bruno Voisin
>
> PS Please cc possible answers to me, as I'm no longer subscribed to the
> list.
>
>
>
>
>
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