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My font of choice is Roboto Flex and for my design, the only variable attributes I wish to include are 'ascender height' and 'descender depth' which both look very reasonable when used sensibly, by no means ugly (at least for my design) but the font designer, despite having taken the time to include these options doesn't make these variations available (despite other fonts/font designers doing so)... If the 'danger' is that the font designer doesn't want a user choosing an ugly combination and then telling people they used "font x" which has the font designer's name on it, why would they even create that as an option in the first place?

This is where I'm a little confused... Yes, e.g., on Google Fonts (other variable font websites are available) differing numbers of axes for variable fonts are marketed/promoted but I'm slightly unsure how one determines which axes the font designer has actually specified should be hidden... Why does Roboto Flex advertise 13 variables but only choose to make five available? I'm sure I'm likely missing the obvious but interested to know...

There is another font with similar Variable axes =Recursive I just installed it but also only showing 2 of the 5 variable options (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Recursive) I only see MONO and CASL

Interesting! I think I might just uninstall something like open sans and just re-install the variable version to see if clears mixing The Cursive range is 0-1 for me (the slider works fine also I checked the meaning =Uncle Google says “Cursive” (CRSV in CSS) is an axis found in some variable fonts that controls the substitution of cursive forms. “Off” (0) maintains upright letterforms such as the double-storey "a" and "g," “auto” (0.5) allows for cursive substitution of cursive forms when combined with the slant axis, and “on” (1) asserts cursive forms even in upright text with a slant of 0. whatever that means!

Must admit I had to do a bit of reading up on this subject!😀..I am sure it is going to be a fantastic new feature and looking forward to using it! 1. Many of the Variable Fonts appear to exhibit 1 or 2 axes so tried to download ones that have 3 or more variable options 2. Mixed Fonts could require access to style to get Variable to be recognised 3. Had 1 Crash while scrolling or selecting font (bit vague but did not observe exactly what was going on!) (Crash report attached) 4. Like the idea of a reset to default values. Would be practically impossible to control with so many options and many fonts installed. 5. Think might uninstall non VFonts of the same name in future! Testing W.I.P Installed Source Serif 4 (weight 400 | optical Size 20) Y Geologica(weight 400 | Cursive 0 | Sharpness 0 | Slant 0) Cursive not sure what it does! shows on list + Slant and sharpness missing Roboto Flex others testing Saira (Weight 100 | Width 100) Y Source Serif 4 (weight 400 | optical Size 20) Y Noto Sans Display (weight 400 | Width 100) Roboto Serif (Weight 100 | Width 100 Optical Size 20 | Grad 0 ) Grad no show Advent Pro (Weight 400 | Width 100) y Literata (weight 400 | optical Size 12) y Playfair (weight 300 | optical Size 5 | Width 112.5) y Pathway Extreme (weight 100 | optical Size 8 | Width 100) Recursive ( Monospace | Casual |weight 400 | Cursive 0 Slant 0) Google Popular Open Sans (Weight 400 | Width 100) had to go into font and select style to get this to display Montserrat (Weight 100) Inter (Weight 400 | Slant 0) Roboto Condensed (weight 400) Roboto Mono (Weight 400) Oswald (Weight 400) Noto Sans (Weight 400 | Width 100) Raleway (Weight 100) Nunito Sans (weight 100 | optical Size 12 | Width 200 | YTLC 500 ) Playfair Display (Weight 400) DM Sans (weight 400 | optical Size 9) Noto Serif (Weight 400 | Width 100) Couple of No Shows on the Variable lists looks ok so far (Added these to favs so can easily source them) Noto Sans Display has 72 variants Google Popular Open Sans (Weight 400 | Width 100) Montserrat (Weight 100) Inter (Weight 400 | Slant 0) Roboto Condensed (weight 400) Roboto Mono (Weight 400) Oswald (Weight 400) Noto Sans (Weight 400 | Width 100) Raleway (Weight 100) Nunito Sans (weight 100 | optical Size 12 | Width 200 | YTLC 500 ) Playfair Display (Weight 400) DM Sans (weight 400 | optical Size 9) Noto Serif (Weight 400 | Width 100) On my travels in the internet I came across a few tools and featured information that is useful: 1. Axis definitions: https://fonts.google.com/variablefonts#axis-definitions This helped interpret the abbreviations 2.Sort of Font analyser: https://wakamaifondue.com/ so you can see font parameters by dragging the font onto target 3. Font Testers: Loads but I liked these https://v-fonts.com/ https://www.axis-praxis.org/specimens/__DEFAULT__ https://play.typedetail.com/ 4. Google Font links Google Fonts with 365 of 1623 families https://fonts.google.com/?vfonly=true https://fonts.google.com/?vfonly=true&sort=popularity https://fonts.google.com/?vfonly=true&sort=date 5 V-Font Links https://v-fonts.com/ https://v-fonts.com/licenses/ https://v-fonts.com/licenses/free-for-commercial-use https://v-fonts.com/licenses/bundled 6. Some Stuff with free stuff! https://uncut.wtf/ https://www.fontshare.com/ https://anrt-nancy.fr/en/fonts https://www.typotheque.com/ https://typotheque.luuse.fun/ https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/ https://www.losttype.com/ https://www.tunera.xyz/ https://www.design-research.be/by-womxn/ https://fontesk.com/tag/variable/ Crash while editing VFonts.zip

Hello, A major issue I have encountered is that Affinity does not respect or take into account the 'Required Variation Alternates' feature ('rvrn'). It is mandatory and should not be exposed in the UI, but it allows type designers to specify alternates to use for specific glyphs between two values of an axis. (OpenType reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/features_pt#rvrn) I have designed a font that has a variation alternate for dollar and cent. Several variable fonts use this type of alternate. Affinity's behaviour: 20240427-1005-20.4049769.mp4 The normal behaviour : 20240427-1007-02.8858189.mp4

Walt, I have another problem on my iPad Pro M1 - I was eager to test the Variable Font functionality, but, I did the mistake to install the V-fonts before I started the new Publisher beta (2.50) - all of a sudden the fontmenu in Publisher is almost useless, it scrolls so slow slow, and lagging heavily… Now I can’t if it’s a bug in latest beta for iPad, or, some fonts are interfering with something… How is it on your iPad? Is the fontmenu OK?

I thought I'd play around with the new Variable Font support using Publisher 2.5.0.2415 on my iPad. I downloaded Roboto Flex from Google Fonts, asked iFont to install it, and got this: Are there any hints for how to install Variable fonts some other way that is supported?

This may be off topic but I thought I'd mention it here since it is related to variable fonts & maybe someone can help me understand what I am seeing in the current V2.4.2 retail apps. Anyway, after installing the Shantell Sans-Variable Font to test it with the beta, I was curious to see how the retail apps handled it. I was surprised that unlike the typical multiple instances of "Regular" or whatever that users have been reporting when they have installed variable fonts, I got a list of its (preset?) styles & each of them works as expected: Same with the 6 PlayFair Display (preset?) styles. EDIT: I think what happened is even though I used Font Book to open just the PlayfairDisplay-VariableFont_wght.ttf & ShantellSans-VariableFont_BNCE,INFM,SPAC,wght.ttf files I downloaded from Google Fonts, when I clicked the "Install Font" button in Font Book, for some reason it installed the static fonts as well, but I can't be sure about that.

Is this when opening a PDF with the embedded variable font? It will be missing if that's the case based on the unique filename allocated to the static instance of the font generated on export not matching the source filename for the font... Preflight throws up no errors and Save as Package shows the fonts with a green tick...

Good call! This can still be a good spot for discussion on all these ideas for the future. I'll be checking it out and giving feedback on the proper forum (if there's something not really working great, or something). While on the subject of suggestions, I'll just leave something else out here: would it be possible, at some point and if the Variable OpenType spec allowed for it, to have this panel hook into discrete values for these axes, specified by the type designer(s) and coded into the font file itself, include some sort of “snap to discrete values” toggle, and have those values appropriately previewed under the slider instead of the default 20 “steps”/21 ticks? I know this sounds very counter-intuitive to the spirit of variable fonts, because, yes, they're great because you can fine-tune stuff, we all know that, but that's just one of its advantages. You see, as a type designer specialised in modular and geometric fonts, I work a lot with grids and stackable geometric models, à lá Josef Albers' Kombinationsschrift „3“, and would also very much benefit from distributing a single variable file instead of a bunch of different combinations like in Frutiger's Univers scheme… This is the kind of stuff I'd love to see being added to the Variable OpenType spec, and being adopted and supported by software purveyors. Having vector UI elements to complement the axes' names would be a nice-to-have, but this would be a functional game-changer, and could even help undecided/beginner designers in other contexts… These “fixed”, traditional values could – if they don't already – also exist in traditional fonts and serve as pointers for traditional weights, and those designers might start out by picking one of them and then fine-tune them afterwards, after some test print runs or gathering user feedback on digital prototypes. This would effectively make Variable OpenType the default go-to font format, even for fonts designed with separate, non-interpolation-friendly masters… If a piece of software was presented with one such font file, boom, the “snap to discrete values” would be turned on by default and greyed-out. Even old typefaces could be repackaged as “variable” with zero updates and still be more practical and neat to use. As for my particular use case, and as the spec and its industry support stand, I'll have to produce and distribute instruction manuals with the recommended axis values to ensure fonts snap to their corresponding geometric grids. If the guys at FontFont managed to do that for the über-complex Chartwell and its myriad of OT Stylistic Sets, I guess I can make it, too.

Yeah, it was originally created in 2.4. Using the static font. Disabling the static font and then enabling the variable font seems to have caused this problem. I can see folks who have used static versions of fonts in the past wanting to migrate documents to variable versions if possible.

Sure thing @Pauls. I've attached an example file here. FWIW The Example.png file is what I see in Designer using variable fonts (see Example_static.png for static fonts), but I have no idea what is happening with the exported PDF using variable fonts (attached) as the font is the wrong weight—but at least it's legible. The font used is Ohno Softie Variable from Adobe Fonts. Example.afdesign Example.pdf

I think I am going to pay A LITTLE more attention to the rmap tags now🤣 https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/170391-variable-fonts-support/&do=findComment&comment=1201156

It does, but I still couldn't get it to 400 without typing. I could get 401, or 397. The other alternative was to use Undo, but that currently is affected by "AF-2845 - Variable fonts - Axes values not updating" so until you close and reopen the Variations dialog you're not sure whether it worked or exactly what it did.

Amazing! Thank you for working towards adding variable fonts support! Ii would also be amazing if we can work towards adding support for SVG color fonts. I have an idea for helping to further build and anccelerate the advancement of Affinity’s capabilities. What if we can fund commonly requested features through donations? I’d be happy to help by putting money into a fund for the development of SVG color fonts support. Other funds can also be created for commonly requested tools and features like vector tracing, manual curve smoothing, basic 3D editor and constructor for mockups creation…etc.

Hi All, I'm pleased to let you know we have now added support for Variable Fonts to the Affinity Suite on all platforms - available to try now in the 2.5 beta...

Hi All, I'm pleased to let you know we have now added support for Variable Fonts to the Affinity Suite on all platforms - available to try now in the 2.5 beta...

Hi All, I'm pleased to let you know we have now added support for Variable Fonts to the Affinity Suite on all platforms - available to try now in the 2.5 beta...

Hi All, I'm pleased to let you know we have now added support for Variable Fonts to the Affinity Suite on all platforms - available to try now in the 2.5 beta...

Hi All, I'm pleased to let you know we have now added support for Variable Fonts to the Affinity Suite on all platforms - available to try now in the 2.5 beta...

Hi All, I'm pleased to let you know we have now added support for Variable Fonts to the Affinity Suite on all platforms - available to try now in the 2.5 beta...

Hi All, I'm pleased to let you know we have now added support for Variable Fonts to the Affinity Suite on all platforms - available to try now in the 2.5 beta...

Hi All, I'm pleased to let you know we have now added support for Variable Fonts to the Affinity Suite on all platforms - available to try now in the 2.5 beta...

Hi All, I'm pleased to let you know we have now added support for Variable Fonts to the Affinity Suite on all platforms - available to try now in the 2.5 beta...