Variable fonts support

[Athanasius Pernath]

Version 1.8 of OpenType was released in 2016, it included Variable fonts. The feature is mature and widely used nowadays. 

It would be great to have support for variable fonts. 

[Guedes]

THANK YOU!

The main topic suggesting this was written in 2018, there are lots of people asking for it and the only answer is they "hope to implement this in a future version".
Is it even coming in a future version? Maybe in the 6.0 upgrade?

 

It would be great, every one wants this, I don't know what's up with the Affinity devs when they think it's more useful to do the "shape builder" tool than to make people use fonts the way it's intended to do.

[garrettm30]

1 hour ago, Guedes said:

It would be great, every one wants this, I don't know what's up with the Affinity devs when they think it's more useful to do the "shape builder" tool than to make people use fonts the way it's intended to do.

To be fair, a lot of people clamored for the shape builder tool, and on the other hand, several people have even argued of the “pointlessness” of variable fonts. Serif can’t satisfy everyone all at once.

For the record, I too am very eager for variable fonts, especially now that they start to become mainstream. I don’t fault Serif for not building that feature just yet, and I am excited about V2 for the other things I did get this go-around. But count me among the people for whom variable fonts would be a headline new feature in a future update. I would pay an upgrade fee for that feature alone.

[CoryM]

Without variable font support, I'll stick to Affinity's competitor that does offer it. All modern browsers support variable fonts, as does Affinity's big competitor. Affinity has added lots of new features — most of which I wasn't really needing. Affinity's 2.0's feature list mentions "Pro Font Support." Without support for variable fonts, it's font support is not only not pro-level, it's years behind. Lack of variable font support is a disappoint to the point of me almost getting angry. I was finally hoping to finally ditch my monthly subscription fee to the other company, but it seems that won't be happening yet. This is absolutely maddening for me.

 

[Transistor]

Agreed, I must admit I actually expected support for varis to be in V2. Personally I'd also like to have support for color fonts, but that may still be a niche request.

j,

Edited November 10, 2022 by Transistor
typo

[Guedes]

Please, let’s keep this discussion alive.

[Luc(as)]

No variable fonts support in v2 is a bummer indeed.
The variable font format is not mature yet, but at least in its puberty 🙂
Variable Fonts – Support (v-fonts.com)

[wonderings]

I can count the number of times I have used or seen variable fonts used on 1 hand. I work in print and design so get a lot of work from designer houses (not people with photoshop who call themselves designers). I think they are a great idea, but not something that drastically changes how people work in these field. Many fonts already have the gamut from light to ultra which I would think suits the vast majority of the world. Again I think variable fonts are a great idea and nice to always have options, not sure I would make such a big deal about the variable fonts not being in V2 myself. 

[CoryM]

Since most typeface designers use stepped interpolation to produce the intermediate weights and widths of static OTF and TTF font families, saving the development file to a variable font becomes a no-brainer for them.

For this reason alone, variable fonts are not going away. As type designers create more type designs, the number of variable fonts accompanying those static font families will also grow.

The variable font format is wholly mature and one that I find enormously useful. It's an increasingly critical part of my work as a designer.

However, because so many printers have only a superficial familiarity with the format, I always ask new printers about their level of experience with variable fonts and if their RIPs can handle them. 

When I get a positive response from those printers, I've never had a problem. When I get a deer-in-the-headlights reaction from the printer, I'll typically choose another printer or convert the text to outlines before sending it.

For me, Affinity's lack of support for variable fonts is a deal-killer. Sadly, the lack of support eliminates the Affinity applications from consideration in my workflow routines.

I was an early adopter of the Affinity suite, and I loved the possibilities I saw in it. As the proliferation and use of variable fonts began to take off, it seemed obvious that Affinity would incorporate variable font and, also, non-Latin-based alphabet support into Version 2. Unfortunately, Serif/Affinity dropped the ball. Maybe in version 3, but that could be years away. In the mean time, it's back to Adobe.

[maxwellthen]

I was excited when I saw Version 2 announced, in hopes that variable font support was finally added... and then incredibly disappointed to find out Affinity is still behind the times.

I'll buy the upgrade when it has variable font support, and not a moment sooner.

[DamienG]

Glad I found this thread before I pulled the trigger - it's bad enough having to pay for .webp support but not having variable fonts is a deal breaker for me. I don't want to be waiting multiple years and paying again for v3 to get that.

(Yes, I get there's a ton of new features and that v1 was supported and enhanced for years as well but when you don't use any of those features at all and just wanted .webp and variable fonts it's incredibly frustrating)

[R.Keller]

+1
I was also hoping/expecting variable font support in v2. As a typeface designer, my main use of this software is to make specimens and test my variable fonts. It's frustrating how low of a priority this still is for Serif (ironic that with the name 'Serif' they don't care more about the fonts 😂).

[JariH]

Oh no...

Just struggled with my design and found out Affinity does not support variable fonts.

Affinity, please. Anything, even predefined weights would do. I need specific typefaces that are available only in variable font.

[Didacticus]

+1

Certainly, even if it doesn't echo as much, it is a very useful addition that I would have expected already for 2.0. I wouldn't want to wait too much to get it.

[PaulEC]

On 11/9/2022 at 4:55 PM, Guedes said:

every one wants this,

I don't - for me the Shape Builder Tool (and the support for Footnotes/Endnotes, in Publisher) was much more important!
(I don't have any problem with having variable font support, I just wish people wouldn't push something they want by saying, quite unjustifiably, that "everyone" wants it; a lot of people have no interest in variable fonts!)  

[carbode]

+1

The vast majority of my font library is unusable in Affinity. I was really hoping variable fonts would be supported in v2!

[Guedes]

On 12/9/2022 at 12:53 PM, PaulEC said:

I don't

oh so sorry next time imma ask you if you want it too before saying that "everyone" wants something. didn't mean to gaslight your opinion.

[cgidesign]

I dare to have the opinion that variable font support is base feature that any professional graphics software should have today. And of course I ran into the issue to find out that Affinity does not.

[PSDfield]

since more and more fonts are available in the varaible format I would also be glad this feature to be implemented in the Affinity Suite, but so far the main use case seams to be in webdesign

[David Cake]

19 hours ago, PSDfield said:

so far the main use case seams to be in webdesign

It’s true that variable font support is more advanced in the web world, and that variable fonts are more compelling in web applications. 
But they are certainly where a lot of the interest in new font development is, and the Affinity suite certainly comes across as behind the times without it. There are some compelling creative effects you can do with them too. 

And often people try to create a unified look across web, PDF, and print. If you can’t use variable fonts you can’t do the web side as well. it’s a real issue for people doing eg a corporate branding, or developing resources that are available as web pages or downloadable resources. 

Frankly, lacking variable font support is a bit embarrassing for a 2022 app. 
And once they fix that (which should be near top of the list for features to add), color fonts are becoming important for some similar reasons. 

[hifred]

Our case for using variable fonts is simple. The fonts we use are licensed from a font foundry and are used in all proper documents: On our website and in printed documents. Exceptions are emails and newsletters, where we must use system fonts. Affinity products do not support variable fonts, which means that we have to stick to InDesign.

[Old Bruce]

20 hours ago, hifred said:

... The fonts we use are licensed from a font foundry and are used in all proper documents...

Does the font foundry have static versions available?

[AdamStanislav]

9 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Does the font foundry have static versions available?

While I can’t speak for that foundry, as a font designer myself, I am not going to waste my time producing every static combination of my fonts possible, when I can place it all in a single font per typeface. You know, if your font contains five variations in each of just five characters, you would have to produce 25 static fonts with corresponding kerning in each (or potentially put all the variants into one extra font with non-standard encoding and no kerning). And if you have more, the number of possible static fonts grows very quickly.

It is not the job of every single font designer or font foundry to produce static versions. It is the job of software like the Affinity Designer, Publish, and Photo to implement (or not if they don’t know how, or don’t care to) the standard.

[fde101]

4 hours ago, AdamStanislav said:

It is the job of software like the Affinity Designer, Publish, and Photo to implement (or not if they don’t know how, or don’t care to) the standard.

I would argue rather that it should be the responsibility of the font manager within the underlying operating system or windowing system to do this.  The applications should be able to use a provided API to query the list of variable attributes (weight, width, slant, etc.) available for a given font, after which they should only need to present a user interface which allows the user to specify those values (or obtain them from CSS code if within a web browser, etc.), then feed the resulting values back to the font manager or windowing system to obtain the adjusted outlines or the rendered bitmaps, or to draw provided text onto the display or a printout.

[A_B_C]

I’m not so sure. Take the Mac versions as an example. I could be mistaken, but far as I understand, the Affinity apps do not use Core Text on macOS, but are based on a custom text layout and rendering engine that reads the raw font data directly. So handling variable fonts would have to be done by that custom engine. If the Affinity apps were to use Core Text, they could also provide variable font support. As far as I remember, the Mac operating system started to include variable font support in version 10.5. Though “support” certainly meant something different then, compared to what is possible today.

In general, I would also support the request made in this thread. While I used to be sceptical about variable fonts in the past, my mind has changed since. These fonts are highly useful design tools.