Italic Alternates Test

This test font documents a problem in Adobe apps where an alternate cannot be substituted correctly once a Feature variation (rvrn) is applied.

I am testing with MacOS 10.15.7 in InDesign 16.2.1. Illustrator 25.2.3.

In this demo, the lowercase a is substituted by an italic variant at .5 on the ital axis.

The Stylistic Sets are:

  • Stylistic Set 01: Substitute default a with italic a (applies italic feature variation without italicizing)
  • Stylistic Set 02: Substitute italic a with default a (undoes italic feature variation)
  • Stylistic Set 03: Substitute default a with a second alternate that is not included in a feature variation (upright a with no counterform)

The unexpected behaviors are as follows:

When I try to apply the ss02 alternate to an individual glyph, nothing happens. It does work when the feature variation is not applied, and when I use the ss03 alternate. I would expect all stylistic sets to apply their intended alternate.

apply-alternate-via-tooltip-sometimes-does-not-work.mov

I am not able to apply stylistic sets to a selection. I would expect to see the stylistic sets listed here and to be able to check them to apply them to a selection.

apply-stylistic-set-via-tooltip-does-not-work.png

apply-stylistic-set-via-character-palette-does-not-work.mov

When I use the same font in other apps or browsers, the stylistic sets are available and apply correctly.

Font Goggles

Chrome

Thank you!