How "beta" is OTVar font format?

Russell McGorman · October 2025

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 2025

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 2025

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 2025

Thanks!

How "beta" is OTVar font format?

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