[XeTeX] Support of variable OpenType fonts

[David Jones]

I stand corrected.  I'll keep that in mind the next time we update the fonts.


David.

________________________________
From: XeTeX <xetex-bounces+dmj=ams.org at tug.org> on behalf of David Carlisle <d.p.carlisle at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2022 5:08 PM
To: XeTeX (Unicode-based TeX) discussion.
Cc: Bruno Voisin
Subject: Re: [XeTeX] Support of variable OpenType fonts



On Tue, 12 Jul 2022 at 22:03, David Jones <dmj at ams.org<mailto:dmj at ams.org>> wrote:
STIX Two is distributed in OTF, TTF, and WOFF2 formats:

     https://github.com/stipub/stixfonts<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<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<mailto:ams.org at tug.org>> on behalf of Bruno Voisin via XeTeX <xetex at tug.org<mailto:xetex at tug.org>>
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2022 10:17 AM
To: xetex at tug.org<mailto: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://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/355104/tex-luatex-xetex-fontspec-support-for-opentype-variable-fonts>
https://sourceforge.net/p/xetex/feature-requests/28<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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