Glyphs rendering different compared to Roboto

[barmadrid]

Hi,

I'm experiencing this and it's (mainly noticeable with bold text) in both Firebox and Chrome (latest versions) on Linux as well as within Gnome shell.

See screenshots for example (letter g and p):

Roboto:

Roboto Flex:

As you can see the tail on the g has very tight spacing compared to that of Roboto.

Thanks

[kenmcd]

Looks like the YTDC and YTLC axes are not at the defaults. YTDC affects the descenders - so the g and p descenders look short. YTLC affect the lowercase height - the text is all a bit shorter. The old Roboto does not have these axes.

Below is a demo which I tested here: https://variable-type-tools.appspot.com/

It appears the defaults for those axes are not being used. Can you set them explicitly to test?

[barmadrid]

Not sure how to make sure all default font axes are being used/configured globally (Browser, sites and within the OS)!

[dberlow]

The report of an issue is best accompanied by a designspace location and you chopped off the top of the view that shows where we are. so, either please include it, or turn on the display of “Parameters”, in blue, in the lower left of the typetools UI and repeat,

Otherwise “Looks like the YTDC and YTLC axes are not at the defaults.” I have to ask about that and the next two observations, compared to what, at what size…?

Roboto does not have a lot of axes Roboto Flex has including opsz. So, related to what size we’re looking at, if you are expecting 70 point Roboto Flex’s lowercase to match Roboto’s regular, which Is now like Flex’s 14 point, it will not. You will find Roboto Flex at 70 pt takes up less space when used at that size because it has a shorter Lowercase making it possible to have narrower characters more tighty fit, making it possible to fit more text per line, making most people happy, in a Tradition that goes back hundreds of years.

Or… if you want Roboto Flex at all sizes to look more like Roboto, I’d suggest if you can disable use of optical sizes, do so.

[barmadrid]

@dberlow the cropped images above are from Arch Linux website using Firefox browser and Roboto Flex TTF. Here is site (full image) using Roboto Flex (changed the font in Firefox):

[kenmcd]

The report of an issue is best accompanied by a designspace location and you chopped off the top of the view that shows where we are. so, either please include it, or turn on the display of “Parameters”, in blue, in the lower left of the typetools UI and repeat,

I am not reporting an issue, just trying to show the OP what appears to be happening. Only other parameter changed was weight to make it bold (as he did).

Do not think the issue is with the font. Guessing it is probably with the browser(s) and unfamiliar axes.

There was another issue posted recently where the defaults were not used correctly. On the Google Fonts specimen page for Fraunces it appears the font does not work properly even in Chrome. The wonk axis is On by default in the font, but it does not appear that way on the demo page. https://github.com/undercasetype/Fraunces/issues/264 That issue does have a link (posted by @davelab6) to a Chrome issue (which I cannot see). And this appears to be a similar wonk axis issue: https://github.com/undercasetype/Fraunces/issues/265

So that has me wondering if the browser(s) are having an issue with axes they are not expecting. The browsers should use the axis defaults in the font, but that does not seem to be happening - this issue may be another example of that.

[davelab6]

It seems Chromium turned off auto opsz for reasons I do not yet fully understand.

[mon-jai]

It seems Chromium turned off auto opsz for reasons I do not yet fully understand.

@davelab6 I encountered the same issue in https://github.com/rsms/inter/discussions/463.

It is confusing because font-optical-sizing works on MDN and Google Fonts, but (maybe) not with locally installed fonts, even setting its value to auto explicitly.

Can you fire a bug in Chromium's bug tracker regarding the issue?

[barmadrid]

Can you fire a bug in Chromium's bug tracker regarding the issue?

The same case for Firefox it seems.

[mon-jai]

Can you fire a bug in Chromium's bug tracker regarding the issue?

The same case for Firefox it seems.

I tested font-optical-sizing with locally installed "Roboto Flex".

It works on Firefox 101.0 but not on Chrome 102.0.5005.63. It seems to be a Chromium specific bug.

[barmadrid]

Can you fire a bug in Chromium's bug tracker regarding the issue?

The same case for Firefox it seems.

I tested font-optical-sizing with locally installed "Roboto Flex".

It works on Firefox 101.0 but not on Chrome 102.0.5005.63. It seems to be a Chromium specific bug.

Still an issue as of Firefox 102.0.1 on Arch Linux.

[mon-jai]

Reported at Chromium Bugs.

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1343355