Bold issue with Roboto font Jan 14 2015 update

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Roboto font - bold, font size 12px

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
Bold font appears smaller compared to non bold font of the same size. This 
issue was not present before the recent update.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
Latest version (14th Jan 2015) through Google Font API.

Please provide any additional information below.
I have attached two images. The first showing the comparison between standard 
and bold font before the update and the second image after the update.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by david.bu...@gmail.com on 15 Jan 2015 at 6:28

Attachments:

• roboto-before-update.jpg
• roboto-after-update.jpg

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks for reporting this :)

I attempted to reproduce this on XP and Win8.1, Firefox IE and Chrome, with 
http://jsbin.com/jucavo/quiet and I could not.

Can you see the issue in http://jsbin.com/jucavo/quiet ?

Original comment by dcrossland@google.com on 15 Jan 2015 at 9:10

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• Added labels: Priority-Critical
• Removed labels: Priority-Medium

[GoogleCodeExporter]

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[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thank you for looking into this so promptly.

Upon further testing, it appears that this issue is only present if selected 
font weights are loaded. In this case, I have loaded 400 for normal weight and 
700 for bold.

This will reproduce the issue: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" 
href="//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto:400,700" />

This will not: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" 
href="//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto" />

Original comment by david.bu...@gmail.com on 15 Jan 2015 at 10:42

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks, however, I still can't reproduce; please see 
http://jsbin.com/jucavo/5/edit  and http://imgur.com/a/kTOVS

Original comment by d.crossland on 15 Jan 2015 at 11:05

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[deleted comment]

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[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thank you for providing the image, which confirmed that there must be a 
variance with my system environment. Your image did not display the height 
difference I was seeing.

I have now identified why this variance occurred. The installed version of 
Roboto on my system was conflicting with the web font (Google Font API). As I 
only had the regular version of the font installed and not bold, the web page 
rendered the regular (non updated) version of the font from that which was 
already installed on my system. However, as the bold font was not installed, 
this rendered the updated version through the Google Font API. I would have 
thought that if the resource was declared in the HTML document, this would take 
precedence. Obviously this assumption was incorrect.

This realisation has also lead to another observation. The 12px font size 
appears to be substantially smaller now compared to the previous version. I 
have not yet compared other font sizes but I assume this was intentional?

I am also still seeing a variance with the output when loading 400/700 only 
compared to loading the font family. Tested on two machines with Chrome, 
Firefox and IE (both Windows 7 desktop).

400/700: http://jsbin.com/wunahamuzi/1/edit

Family: http://jsbin.com/pacikuqidi/1/edit

Are you able to reproduce this?

Original comment by david.bu...@gmail.com on 16 Jan 2015 at 2:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

There is a 'local' font resource option, which means that installed fonts 
render, instantly, while remote font resources take some time to load initially 
and are then cached. Not all web font CSS uses this option, and those that do 
can place it before or after the remote resources; Google Fonts uses it before, 
giving them precedence.

Your 2nd observation is correct, but 'working as intended': The design of 
Roboto has been revised and the fonts hinted by hand, replacing earlier auto 
hinting which stretched the letters at smaller sizes; the rendering is now more 
true to the design. 

In 'Family' in fact only the Regular style is loaded, and the bold text is 
actually a auto-bold rendering of the regular font, which explains the 
variation you'll see.

Original comment by dcrossland@google.com on 16 Jan 2015 at 11:00

• Changed state: Done