Seeking Advice on Using Non-Roman Characters in Font Names Safely

Daniel Yacob

Greetings,

For a few years, I've managed to successfully set a font's Family Name (OpenType Name ID 1), and Full Name (ID 4) with non-Roman/non-ASCII strings in UTF-8, while keeping the PostScript Name (ID 6) in ASCII.  It works for me, so far, but I worry about portability.

Are there any issues to be aware of when using non-Roman names in fonts?  If so, please let me know what the solutions are, if any.

I notice in the OpenType v1.5 spec that the Name IDs section has the statement on ID 4:

"An exception to the above definition of Full font name is for Microsoft platform strings for CFF OpenType fonts: in this case, the Full font name string must be identical to the PostScript FontName in the CFF Name INDEX."

The equivalence requirement would preclude the use of non-ASCII characters in the Full Font name (which in turn should include the Family name).  This statement vanishes in v1.6 of the specification. Or perhaps it's stated differently elsewhere in the spec.

So I'm not sure what to make of it, are non-Roman characters safe in software supporting OT v1.6 and later?

thanks!

jeremy tribby

there was some discussion here: https://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/68183
the figma bug mentioned in that thread still exists and it is not on their roadmap to fix. it's unfortunate, when they were a smaller company things like this got fixed in days