[Variable] VFs whose STAT.AxisValue and fvar.NamedInstance entries are not synchronized are unusable on MS Office for Mac

[thlinard]

Title

VFs whose STAT.AxisValue and fvar.NamedInstance entries are not synchronized are unusable on MS Office for Mac

Font

All Noto * VFs fonts. Very probably, all of them (tested with Noto Serif Oriya released 14 hours ago, and other VFs released earlier this year).

Where the font came from, and when

https://github.com/notofonts/noto-fonts/tree/main/unhinted/variable-ttf

OS name and version

Tested on macOS 10.15.7 and macOS 11.5.1

Application name and version

MS Office for Mac, post-February 2021 update (tested with version 16.51, July 2021 update)

Issue

MS Office for Mac requires synchronization between STAT.AxisValue and fvar.NamedInstance (at least, each fvar.NamedInstance must correspond to a STAT.AxisValue — but the reverse is less essential). The Noto * VFs are released without STAT.AxisValue. This makes them unusable in MS Office for Mac.

See also google/fonts#3267

Possibly related to #9 (I haven't tested on Windows)

Screenshot

Example with Noto Serif VF and Noto Serif Italic VF:

Example with Noto Serif Oriya VF:

[marekjez86]

@felipesanches @m4rc1e : do we have these tests in fontbakery? should we have it if we don't have it?

[thlinard]

@marekjez86

It seems that the latest builds are better, but it's not quite there yet: example with Noto Sans VF (from 8 days ago) and Noto Sans VF Italic (from three months ago). The repetition of Condensed instances at the top and bottom of the list is caused by the same value for nameID 272 ("Condensed") and nameID 273 ("Condensed") assigned to the values 62.5 and 75.0 on the Width axis in the STAT table.

[thlinard]

Suggested label : Variable.

[thlinard]

Many VF fonts have been corrected, thanks for that. But there is still an issue when the nameID used for a weight is different for the same value between the fvar table and the STAT table.

For example, Noto Sans Kannada :