How "beta" is OTVar font format?

Russell McGorman · October 3

Variable type in OT format is flagged as Beta in Fontlab 8's export to fonts option. Is there any risk in using that option?

Thanks.

John Hudson · October 3

The format itself isn’t beta, but FontLab 8’s export profile for the CFF2 flavour of OpenType variable font is flagged that way because it was pretty new when FL8 shipped. I am not aware of any specific risks with using it, but it has been years since I relied on any font editing tool to directly generate fonts, so have not had occasion to analyse the output.

Thomas Phinney · October 4

I expect that if you are using a later release of FL 8 it should be pretty solid. (Not that I know anything specifically wrong earlier!)

Of course, if you are looking for a variable font that works in more places, go with “Variable TT” in the export choices, instead of “Variable PS.” (Nothing specific to do with using FontLab, just a question of which format is better supported. For OpenType in general, either flavor is usually fine. But it is different with variable fonts.)

Russell McGorman · October 9

Thanks!

How "beta" is OTVar font format?

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