Variable font

The "design space" of the variable font Recursive Sans & Mono,[1] illustrated as the nets of two cubes.

A variable font (VF) is a font file that is able to store a continuous range of design variants. An entire typeface (font family) can be stored in such a file, with an infinite number of fonts available to be sampled.[2]

The variable font technology originated in Apple's TrueType GX font variations. The technology was adapted to OpenType as OpenType variable fonts (OTVF) in version 1.8 of the OpenType specification.[3][4][5] The technology was announced by Adobe, Apple, Google, and Microsoft in September 2016. Making such a feature standardized in OpenType paved the way for support in many software platforms.[3][6][7][8]

Variable fonts should not be confused with variable-width fonts. A variable font may be either variable-width of fixed-width[9].

  1. ^ Type, Arrow. "Recursive Sans & Mono". recursive.design. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference mdn was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b "Introducing OpenType Font Variations". www.microsoft.com.
  4. ^ Phinney, Thomas (February 2017). "Variable Fonts Are the Next Generation". Communication Arts. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  5. ^ Phinney, Thomas (14 September 2016). "The Lesson of Color Fonts for Variable Fonts". thomasphinney.com. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  6. ^ "CSS Fonts Module Level 4". drafts.csswg.org.
  7. ^ Nieskens, Roel. "Variable Fonts: the Future of (Web) Type". Typographica. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
  8. ^ Hudson, John. "Introducing OpenType Variable Fonts". Medium. Tiro Typeworks. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
  9. ^ Beckwith, Kate. "Ubuntu's new variable fonts". TypeNetwork. Retrieved 8 August 2024.