Different heights between 200/400 and 600/700 weights

[yuchi]

In the online preview of the Web Font is possible to notice a difference in heights between different weights. In the next image I tried to highlight the difference by placing a box just under the last pixel of straight letters (lower case H and upper case I). You can see the purple box (for 200 and 400) overlaps vertically only part of the blue box (600 and 700).

Also if an inline element breaks this barrier (such as a <strong> inside text with the 400 weight) it changes the height of the line. In the next image I highlighted the endings of the bottom separator line between the ‘normal’ case and the case with a bolder word.

I tested that this issue is reproducible in the following cases:

• inner inline 600 inside 400 block;
• inner inline 700 inside 400 block;
• inner inline 600 inside 200 block;
• inner inline 700 inside 200 block.

It is also reproducible in the following cases:

• inner inline 200 inside 600 block;
• inner inline 400 inside 600 block;
• inner inline 200 inside 700 block;
• inner inline 400 inside 700 block;

It is not reproducible in these:

• inner inline 600 inside 700 block;
• inner inline 700 inside 600 block;
• inner inline 200 inside 400 block;
• inner inline 400 inside 200 block;

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I initially thought it was something related to some issues in hinting heavier weights. The fact that there are issues rendering lighter weights inside heavier ones made me change my mind.

I can only infer it is still something related to hinting, but probably the vertical position of characters are to be blamed for this strange behavior.

I didn’t have time to understand if this is an issue limited to the Web Font, which I reproduced the issues with, or more generally with the font design. I’m also completely unaware of how to diagnose if the origin has to be found in the fonts.

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Thank you for a great typeface design and font execution.

[DelveFonts]

Thank you @yuchi for pointing this issue out. It will be resolved with the next update.

[yuchi]

Would you mind to reference this issue in commits so that I can follow the changes? While completely ignorant in design and pratical issues around font face implementation, I’m very willing to learn.

[DelveFonts]

Will do.

[andyfitzsuse]

the metrics have been resolved thanks to the new 3.0 release.

Thanks for your patience!

[yuchi]

@andyfitz Could you please give me some details on how that happened and you solved it?