Variable font

Making such a feature standardized in OpenType paved the way for support in many software platforms.

When a specific design instance has been selected, the glyph outlines or other data values for that design instance are computed as font data is being processed during text layout and rasterization.

The technology uses interpolation and extrapolation mechanisms that have been supported in font-development tools and used by font designers for many years.

One of the key benefits of the technology is that it can significantly reduce the combined size of font data whenever multiple styles are in use.

This is not required for OpenType variable fonts, however: named or arbitrary design instances can be selected and used on demand.

Creative Cloud 2020 has added variable font support for InDesign.

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