STAT and issues in InDesign 2020

Question

STAT and issues in InDesign 2020

Closed this issue 4 years ago · 16 comments

Hi there
The STAT table as it was in 7172520 made some problems in InDesign, which I fixed by adding locations in tools/buildStat.py

Now it works better. But I see two issues:

Indesign: changing the axes values set the font style to italic:
Mac Font Book not showing names properly (when I drop the STAT table this problem is solved):

Maybe this is connected with the elidedFallbackName parameter in tools/buildStat.py?

buildStatTable(ttFont, axes, locations, 'Italic' if isItalic else 'Upright')

@RosaWagner

Answer 1 · 2020-08-21T08:34:32.000Z

This seems related to the version of the STAT table:

table.Version = 0x00010001
InDesign: Sliders don't work at all

table.Version = 0x00010002
InDesign: Sliders work but always switching to Italics

Answer 2 · 2020-08-21T08:40:43.000Z

I've had the same issues but I've solved them by doing the following:

Use format 2 AxisValues
Include nameID 25
Include psnames for fvar instances

I'll have Roboto Serif up in a few days which you could use as a reference.

Answer 3 · 2020-08-21T09:01:13.000Z

Thanks @m4rc1e
I will try this later and get back with the results

Answer 4 · 2020-08-26T16:10:33.000Z

Hi @juandelperal, I am back from holidays :) where are we in there ? Any improvement on this indesign issue?

Answer 5 · 2020-08-27T08:59:29.000Z

Thanks @RosaWagner
Yes, I worked a little bit more changing the ital axis tag as here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/stat#example-5-a-family-comprised-of-a-non-italic-variable-font-plus-an-italic-variable-font and adding ranges in the weight axis.
I also reviewed some fonts that work OK in InDesign and tried to emulate the STAT table, but still there are problems with Piazzolla. (BTW in Illustrator everything is OK 🤦‍♂️).

The wght axis –format2, which covers the full range between 100 and 900– works ok.
nominalValue=400, rangeMinValue=350, rangeMaxValue=450.

Changing the opsz axis –format 1, which has discrete positions– doesn't work well.
value=14, name='14pt'

This can be solved by changing the table version:
statTable.Version = 0x00010002
which seems very random.

In any case: moving the sliders switch to italics

——

If you see something to fix please let me know.
For testing/fixing my workflow is:

Copying the fonts in /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts.
Test options in buildStat.py
Run

for VF in /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Fonts/Piazzolla*.ttf; do
    python tools/buildStat.py $VF
done

Changes apply instantly.
Thanks

Answer 6 · 2020-08-27T09:05:21.000Z

I also copied some code of @m4rc1e :)
googlefonts/roboto-classic@8fd9236

Answer 7 · 2020-08-27T09:15:05.000Z

This bug is so weird ^^ But as Marc says many times, variable font support on indesign is super experimental and will get better in the future. Important is that it works on the web and illustrator. Can you release the last binaries ? I gonna check directly the TTF ;)

Answer 8 · 2020-08-27T09:16:53.000Z

Yes, agree
https://github.com/huertatipografica/piazzolla/releases/latest

Thanks

Answer 9 · 2020-08-27T09:35:42.000Z

nameID25 should be the following:

Roman:
PiazollaRoman

Italic:
PiazollaItalic

The fvar instance ps names should be structured:

Roman:
PiazollaRoman-Bold

Italic:
PiazollaItalic-Bold

Just copy, https://github.com/TypeNetwork/Roboto/blob/master/scripts/gen_stat.py and replace the wdth axis with your opsz axis.

Answer 10 · 2020-08-27T10:15:12.000Z

Note that as of InDesign 2020 15.1.12 (August 2020 update), according to my tests, nameID25 + psnames in fvar is sufficient (this is also what Photoshop 2020 asks for, anyway).

Answer 11 · 2020-08-27T10:19:10.000Z

Thanks @m4rc1e
Thats what I did. It seems like the name 25 was modified in
https://github.com/huertatipografica/piazzolla/blob/master/tools/fixNameTable.py

By removing that, the names are as you described:

nameID25 should be the following:

Roman:
PiazollaRoman

Italic:
PiazollaItalic

The fvar instance ps names should be structured:

Roman:
PiazollaRoman-Bold

Italic:
PiazollaItalic-Bold

Answer 12 · 2020-08-27T10:23:46.000Z

Thanks @m4rc1e
Thats what I did. It seems like the name 25 was modified in
https://github.com/huertatipografica/piazzolla/blob/master/tools/fixNameTable.py

By removing that, the names are as you described:

nameID25 should be the following:
Roman:
PiazollaRoman
Italic:
PiazollaItalic
The fvar instance ps names should be structured:
Roman:
PiazollaRoman-Bold
Italic:
PiazollaItalic-Bold

Hi @juandelperal

In v2.000 https://github.com/huertatipografica/piazzolla/releases/latest nameID 25 are the same for Roman and Italic.

Answer 13 · 2020-08-27T10:27:31.000Z

Hi @thlinard
Thanks, I just removed fixNameTable.py from the chain and 2.001 is building with that fix.

Answer 14 · 2020-08-27T10:31:10.000Z

Have you the latest binaries?

Answer 15 · 2020-08-27T12:46:17.000Z

Yes, in 2.001 it's now fixed.
https://github.com/huertatipografica/piazzolla/releases/tag/v2.001

It wasn't related to fixNameTable.py but https://github.com/huertatipografica/piazzolla/blob/master/tools/buildStat.py. Thanks @m4rc1e

Answer 16 · 2020-08-27T13:02:57.000Z

This bug is so weird ^^ But as Marc says many times, variable font support on indesign is super experimental and will get better in the future.

Not exactly. InDesign supports VF when they are made exactly like the VFs made by Adobe, which is a bit restrictive I must admit. InDesign 15.1.12 is a bit more forgiving.