WWS Subfamily Name

ClintGoss
ClintGoss Posts: 66
in Font Technology
If a font needs the WWS Family/Subfamily Name fields but has Medium width, Regular weight, and is upright (no slant), should 'name' table ID 22 (WWS Subfamily Name) be [A] "Regular", [B] "" (blank), or [C] missing?

In cannot find anything in the OpenType Spec 1.8.3 that addresses this issue.

An example of this situation would be having a typeface/family containing fonts with Full Font Name (ID 4) values of:
  • MyFont,
  • MyFont Bold,
  • MyFont Quirky, and
  • MyFont Quirky Bold.
There would be two possible values for Font Family Name (ID 1): "MyFont" and "MyFont Quirky". All four fonts would share the Typographic Family Name (ID 16) of "MyFont". However, the issue is how to set WWS Subfamily Name for MyFont and MyFont Quirky.

I have had *nasty* bugs in the past setting 'name' table fields to "". Did that once accidentally with the Typographic Family Name (ID 16) and essentially had a font that some apps and some Windows function thought was named "", which made it difficult to delete (had to hack the registry). So option [B] is not so inviting.

Option [C] presents an issue, since bit 8 of OS/2.fsSelection is a flag for the presents of both WWS Family and Subfamily Names.

Option [A] seems the best choice, since it solves the issue of OS/2.fsSelection.Bit8 and emulates the rules for Font Subfamily Name (ID 2).

Any advice or thoughts welcome!
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Comments

  • ClintGoss
    ClintGoss Posts: 66
    edited July 2020
    Answering my own question (sorry 'bout this ...) there is an example in the spec of Minion Pro Caption which requires the WWS Family/Subfamily Name fields and sets WWS Subfamily Name to "Regular" ... option [A] in my message above ... so there it is!
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,428
    Option [C] presents an issue, since bit 8 of OS/2.fsSelection is a flag for the presence of both WWS Family and Subfamily Names.
    fsSelection bit 8 indicates that the font is part of a WWS family that does not require WWS Family or Subfamily entries in the name table.

    The spec is a bit confusing, but my understanding is that your overall family would constitute a hybrid in which the non-Quirky fonts would constitute a WWS family not requiring ID 21 and 22 name entries (and hence would have fsSelection bit 8 set), while the Quirky fonts would constitute a WWS family that would need name ID 21 and 22 entries (because the Quirky aspect is not a WWS style variant).
  • ClintGoss
    ClintGoss Posts: 66
    John Hudson said:
    fsSelection bit 8 indicates that the font is part of a WWS family that does not require WWS Family or Subfamily entries in the name table.
    Yes, I should have emphasized that, since I did get bitten a while back by that reverse-sensing bit. OS/2.fsSelection.Bit8 is backwards from what you might think!

    And yes, I do have typefaces where I set the two WWS Name fields on some fonts, but not others ...
  • Aaron Bell
    Aaron Bell Posts: 94
    It is a bit of a cop out, but I'd probably just set the fonts to list as two separate families in Windows rather than trying to group them together. That way you don't have to deal with this situation, and to be honest, I think most users accustomed to dealing with Word don't necessarily expect everything to be grouped. 

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