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!
Comments
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).
And yes, I do have typefaces where I set the two WWS Name fields on some fonts, but not others ...