.ttf — so TrueType fonts only! The upstream repo can of course contain OTF-CFF .otf fonts, as well as webfonts .woff2. GF redirects users to the upstream repo to find these files if they are not satisfied with the one served by the API.
download family button in any specimen pages). Please read about the instantiated static fontsGoogle’s static fonts API supports up to 18 styles in one family: up to 9 weights (Thin–Black), + their matching Italics. The table below lists each style’s specific name tables and bit settings.
fontmake doesn’t produce Mac names entries any more. If you must add the name for platform 1 (Mac), make sure they are the same as the one in Platform 3 (Windows).
| Filename | Family Name (ID 1, Win) | Subfamily Name (ID 2, Win) | Typographic Family Name (ID 16) | Typo Subfamily Name (ID 17) | OS/2 usWeightClass | OS/2 fsSelection | head macStyle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FamilyName-Thin.ttf | Family Name Thin | Regular | Family Name | Thin | 100 | bit 6 | |
| FamilyName-ExtraLight.ttf | Family Name ExtraLight | Regular | Family Name | ExtraLight | 200 | bit 6 | |
| FamilyName-Light.ttf | Family Name Light | Regular | Family Name | Light | 300 | bit 6 | |
| FamilyName-Regular.ttf | Family Name | Regular | 400 | bit 6 | |||
| FamilyName-Medium.ttf | Family Name Medium | Regular | Family Name | Medium | 500 | bit 6 | |
| FamilyName-SemiBold.ttf | Family Name SemiBold | Regular | Family Name | SemiBold | 600 | bit 6 | |
| FamilyName-Bold.ttf | Family Name | Bold | 700 | bit 5 | bit 0 | ||
| FamilyName-ExtraBold.ttf | Family Name ExtraBold | Regular | Family Name | ExtraBold | 800 | bit 6 | |
| FamilyName-Black.ttf | Family Name Black | Regular | Family Name | Black | 900 | bit 6 | |
| FamilyName-ThinItalic.ttf | Family Name Thin | Italic | Family Name | Thin Italic | 100 | bit 0 | bit 1 |
| FamilyName-ExtraLightItalic.ttf | Family Name ExtraLight | Italic | Family Name | ExtraLight Italic | 200 | bit 0 | bit 1 |
| FamilyName-LightItalic.ttf | Family Name Light | Italic | Family Name | Light Italic | 300 | bit 0 | bit 1 |
| FamilyName-Italic.ttf | Family Name | Italic | 400 | bit 0 | bit 1 | ||
| FamilyName-MediumItalic.ttf | Family Name Medium | Italic | Family Name | Medium Italic | 500 | bit 0 | bit 1 |
| FamilyName-SemiBoldItalic.ttf | Family Name SemiBold | Italic | Family Name | SemiBold Italic | 600 | bit 0 | bit 1 |
| FamilyName-BoldItalic.ttf | Family Name | Bold Italic | 700 | bit 5 + bit 0 | bit 0 + bit 1 | ||
| FamilyName-ExtraBoldItalic.ttf | Family Name ExtraBold | Italic | Family Name | ExtraBold Italic | 800 | bit 0 | bit 1 |
| FamilyName-BlackItalic.ttf | Family Name Black | Italic | Family Name | Black Italic | 900 | bit 0 | bit 1 |
If the style name matches the RIBBI convention (ie. ID 2 = ID 17), then name IDs 16/17 are not exported.
In Glyphs.app, the Family Name in font info (or the Localised Family Name in the instance), and the Style Name fields are meant to generate the name ID 16/17, or name ID 1/2 if the naming matches RIBBI convention. Although, the export tool can guess it right only if you set the style linking bits correctly as explained below.
font-weight property of 100 or 200 then the usWeightClass value may be 250, as values of 249 or less in CFF fonts suffered from blurry rendering on older versions of Windows — but in 2020 this is no longer necessary.
Several tables in font files need to be set to enable proper style linking between Upright/Italic and Regular/Bold. You can look at the Open Type spec for more info about the:
post table, regarding italic angle value;OS/2 table for the the fsSelection values;head table for macStyle values;name table regarding Name ID 2Name tableWe strictly follow the RIBBI convention for nameID2 (such as required in the OpenType spec), to allow functional style linking in most environments (button Bold and Italic in desktop apps for example). This means that you can’t have another style name than Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic in name ID 2 (for any platform). Other style name should be appended to name ID 1. The “real” font family name that is impacting how a family is grouped in font menu is handled by the name ID 16 and the “real” style names are in name ID 17.
For projects using Glyphs.app, the Style Name field in the set instances will be the one used for the name ID 17. The name ID 2 will be set according to the style linking case and if the style name matches RIBBI. So don’t forget to tick the proper cases: This instance is the [ ] Bold, [ ] Italic of: ___________. You can leave the last field blank which suggests “Regular”, but all other styles need to be mentioned, for example: ExtraLight Italic is [ ] Bold, [X] Italic of: ExtraLight.
Setting up the Italic Angle and ticking the style linking case described above in GlyphsApp should be enough to allow a compiler to set these values correctly.
The following is a summary of the expected values for each style in all the tables mentioned above.
nameID2 is Regularpost table: <italicAngle value="0"/>OS/2 table:
fsSelection bit 6 [is REGULAR] should be 1<fsSelection value="00000000 01000000"/>head table:
macStyle bit 1 [is ITALIC] should be 0<macStyle value="00000000 00000000"/>In Glyphs.app: This instance is the [ ] Bold, [ ] Italic of: ___________
nameID2 is Italic.post table: italic angle should be a negative value for a right leaning slope. Eg. <italicAngle value="-12"/>OS/2 table:
fsSelection bit 0 [is ITALIC] should be 1<fsSelection value="00000000 00000001"/>head table:
macStyle bit 1 [is ITALIC] should be 1<macStyle value="00000000 00000010"/>In Glyphs.app: This instance is the [ ] Bold, [X] Italic of: <Style Name>
nameID2 is Boldpost table: <italicAngle value="0"/>OS/2 table:
fsSelection bit 5 [is BOLD] should be 1<fsSelection value="00000000 00100000"/>head table:
macStyle bit 0 [is BOLD] should be 1<macStyle value="00000000 00000001"/>In Glyphs.app: This instance is the [X] Bold, [ ] Italic of: ___________
nameID2 is Bold Italic.post table: italic angle should be a negative value for a right leaning slope. Eg. <italicAngle value="-12"/>OS/2 table:
fsSelection bit 0 [is ITALIC] should be 1fsSelection bit 5 [is BOLD] should be 1<fsSelection value="00000000 00100001"/>head table:
macStyle bit 0 [is BOLD] should be 1macStyle bit 1 [is ITALIC] should be 1<macStyle value="00000000 00000011"/>In Glyphs.app: This instance is the [X] Bold, [X] Italic of: <Style Name>
If a family has styles which are not in the above table, they should be released as a separate/new family. To do this, append any unsupported style (e.g Condensed) to the family name, so it becomes part of the family name, rather than part of the style name. We frequently use this approach for Condensed and smallcap sibling families. This way, we never have to use name IDs 21/22 for the WWS convention.
For projects which use Glyphs.app, you can follow the example of Archivo which contains glyphs files that are set correctly. An additional field Localised Family Name should be added in all concerned instances in order to append the non supported style to the family name and override the one in font info.
Example:
Localized Family Name: Archivo Condensed
Style Name: Light Italic
Font filenames must be based on the following schema:
FamilyName-Style.ttf e.g. Montserrat-Regular.ttf
The filename must not contain anything else.
Remember Google Fonts only allows weight styles, and doesn’t even follow the WWS scheme in the sense that width styles are forbidden and must be part of the family name of the font family:
FamilyNameWidth-Style.ttf e.g. ArchivoExpanded-Regular.ttf
Same for optical size or any other attribute.
If a family is a single weight and it visually doesn’t have the appearance of a Regular weight, “One” must be appended to the family name and “Regular” used for the style name, since any family must contain a Regular.
This approach allows us to keep the desired font name available if we decide to add more styles in the future: if a future extension of a previously single-weight font includes a Regular, the family name without “One” is used and the “Regular” style name can be given to the new actual Regular weight.
We have released many of these families in the past.
The single weight families must have the following font specific settings:
| Filename | Family Name (nameID 1) | Subfamily Name (nameID 2) | Typographic Family Name (nameID 16) | Typo Subfamily Name (nameID 17) | OS/2.usWeightClass | OS/2.fsSelection | hhea.macStyle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FamilyNameOne-Regular.ttf | Family Name One | Regular | 400 | bit 6 |
Static fonts should be hinted using the latest version of ttfautohint. If the results look poor on Windows browsers, it’s better to release the fonts unhinted with GASP table set to “grayscale / symmetric smoothing” (0x000A) across the full PPEM range. ttfautohint often struggles to hint display or handwritten typefaces.
If you don’t use gftools builder (which autohint static fonts by default but you can turn off that option), you should run the fonts through gftools fix-hinting once the fonts have been hinted. If the fonts are unhinted, run the fonts through gftools fix-nonhinting.
Fontmake does not support manual hinting from Glyphs. You can use use VTT instead and you can patch a VTT program with gftools builder — see Montserrat as an example.
You can view the name tables using these tools:
Some font testing web pages allow you to view a selection of tables: