Default master and correct order in the list of weights

Michael Rafailyk
Michael Rafailyk Posts: 200
edited April 2021 in Font Technology
Hello everyone! I using FontLab 7 and this is my first time working on a variable font. The last weeks a have been reading a lot of manuals and books to do everything right, but now i stuck at one point of testing, and my question is:

How to export a variable font properly to keep the correct weights order?

The font contain 3 masters (Light, Medium, Bold) and 4 instances (Light 300, Regular 400, Medium 500, Bold 700). So Regular instance is actually interpolated in this case. On "Layers and masters" panel i have arranged them in the correct order (Light master on top, then Medium and then Bold). In "Font info" dialog on the "Masters" tab i chose "Medium" like a master by default. After exporting i took a look at font file and actually saw Medium glyphs samples on preview. Good! I check him on Photoshop and there weight's order is ok, but when i using Illustrator and chose my font in a list, his weights are in a wrong order. That's what i saw in Illustrator:
  • Medium
  • Light
  • Regular
  • Bold
Ok, went back to FontLab and chose Light master as a default. After this Illustrator show me a right order:
  • Light
  • Regular
  • Medium
  • Bold
Not sure that is a right way, because font icon also show me a Light glyphs on preview. I check other variable font files and almost every one of them show Regular on preview (it mean Regular master by default).

I found some information about PANOSE numbers, that contain 10 different digits and find it on "Font info" on "Other values" tab. By default every digit show me 0. The third digit should be responsible for the weight, like Medium is 5, Light is 3 etc. Just for interest i tried to change a third digit for each master, but when i pushed "Apply", the values went back to 0.

I would be grateful for your advices!
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Comments

  • Viktor Rubenko
    Viktor Rubenko Posts: 119
    edited April 2021
    You can't fix this. Illustrator always places default master at the beginning.
  • Michael Rafailyk
    Michael Rafailyk Posts: 200
    Viktor Rubenko said:
    You can't fix this. Illustrator always places default master at the beginning.
    Just found the same answer in another thread. Sounds terrible, Adobe need to fix it.

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