PowerPoint: Please vote for better variable font support

Olli Meier
Olli Meier Posts: 17
in Font Technology
I have created a public feedback about PowerPoint issues with variable fonts, if someone has a Microsoft account and would be willing to vote for it: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/9b6b92b6-802e-f111-9730-7c1e52f15e53

The thing is, I recently figured out something promising: PowerPoint uses a different rendering engine for variable fonts. You may wonder why this promising? It's because the render which is used for variable fonts, supports opentype features eg. GPOS kerning and calt. I have made a video about it for a hack for static fonts (please keep in mind that this is a hack not recommendation): https://youtube.com/shorts/TlOKT7uk__k
PPT nay or may not change their strategy to support GPOS kerning for static fonts, but as it works with variable fonts, it's an argument to switch to variable fonts, especially as it also supports other features like calt.

My hope is, that if the developers from Microsoft are willing to improve how variable fonts are supported within PowerPoint we finally may have a chance for better typography within PPT.
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Comments

  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 2,059
    Does PowerPoint even support kerning these days? That used to be a major problem with it.
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 350
    Voted, thanks for your long-lasting effort.
  • Olli Meier
    Olli Meier Posts: 17
    It does support an old-school kern table and flat GPOS. 
    But when you have a variable font (also static fonts as shown in my hack video triggered by a fvar table), it does support regular GPOS kerning.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,645
    also static fonts as shown in my hack video triggered by a fvar table
    Is it definitely or only the fvar table that triggers the GPOS kerning support? Wondering if the presence of a STAT table might do this?
  • Olli Meier
    Olli Meier Posts: 17
    Hi @John Hudson I tested it with a STAT table within a static fonts as well and it does not trigger it.
  • Olli Meier
    Olli Meier Posts: 17
    edited April 7
    It would be sooooo great if a STAT table within a static font would trigger PPT to switch the render which supports OpenType features (including GPOS kerning), but that's not the case, yet. If this happens one day, I will definitely update my workflow and build STAT tables for static fonts by default.

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