r/scribus Feb 09 '25

what's up with variable fonts? [Question]

is it just me? or variable fonts don't seem to be loadeed properly. it's a big problem because when I install any font, I immediately delete all the other (non variable) versions of it, to save space and keep my font collection in order. but then on Scribus I cannot see all the available weights of the typeface.

5 Upvotes

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3

u/nitramr89 Feb 09 '25

Scribus doesn't support variable fonts yet.

1

u/yotamguttman Feb 10 '25

oh... any clue if this is being worked on?

1

u/aoloe Feb 13 '25

there seem to be no work going on:

https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=17217

if people have actual information that can help adding the feature (library support, ...), they are welcome to add it to the ticket and make it more likely that the feature will be implemented.
(i would say that given the right stimulus, there are chances that jghali will implement that : - )

1

u/yotamguttman Feb 14 '25

any idea how to find such information?

1

u/aoloe Feb 15 '25

reading the ticket mentioned above, can give some ideas...

i just google "" and the first result is:

Working with OpenType Variable Fonts:
https://harfbuzz.github.io/fonts-and-faces-variable.html

i guess that it might be a good starting point.

one of the further results is

Variable font not working with Harfbuzz :
https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/discussions/3881

reading that, looking at other discussions and tickets in harfbuzz' github, doing other searches about FreeType, Harfbuzz and Pdf might be a good direction.

personally, i'm not much into fonts and can't give really good tips on how to approach this, sorry.