[XeTeX] fontspec and scaling

[Zdenek Wagner]

2015-01-20 17:50 GMT+01:00 maxwell <maxwell at umiacs.umd.edu>:
> On 2015-01-20 04:55, Zdenek Wagner wrote:
>>
>> If I understand the scaling attribute correctly, let say, you have
>> scaling=1.4 and you request \normalsize which id 10pt. Fontspec will
>> multiply it and request 14pt font size instead. If there is an optical
>> size available, it will be used.
>
>
> This last was my question: will the scaling attribute in Fontspec
> automatically use an optical size (or since scaling will probably not result
> in an exact optical size, will Fontspec scale the closest optical size).
>
I hope so but you can always explicitly specify which optical sizes
should be used for which font size.
>>> ...how do I know whether a font supports optical
>>> sizes (and which specific sizes it has)?
>>
>>
>> fontinfo -z FILENAME
>
My fault, I wanted to write

otfinfo -z FILENAME
>
> There isn't any 'fontinfo' program on our Linux system, and I couldn't find
> such a program in a websearch.  (There is a Firefox plugin by that name,
> written by Jonathan Kew, but that doesn't seem to be what you're referring
> to.  Also some libraries for Python etc.)  There is however a "font
> information" dialog box in FontForge.  One of its tabs is "Size".  For the
> font I'm working with (MvElaafNormal.otf.ttf), the "design size" shows up as
> 0.0 pts.  I suspect that means there are no optical sizes in this font.
>
> But none of the other fonts I looked at with FontForge (including Charis SIL
> and several free Adobe fonts) have anything but 0.0pts in the "design size".
> Maybe it's only very high end fonts that have multiple optical sizes?  In
> which case I've been on a wild goose chase worrying about whether Fontspec's
> scaling function will choose the appropriate optical size...
>
>    Mike Maxwell
>    University of Maryland

Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz