xdvipdfmx:fatal: invalid offsize data

[Ken Moffat]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2020 at 03:41:50AM +0100, Ken Moffat via tex-live wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 11:11:36PM +0100, Ken Moffat via tex-live wrote:
> > 
> > I've just tried this using (self-compiled) TL2020.  With DejaVu Sans
> > it works as expected, but with Cantarell Regular (from
> > cantarell-fonts-0.201 xelatex fails with
> >  xdvipdfmx:fatal: invalid offsize data
> > 
> Workaround: remove Cantarell-VF.otf
> 
> According to fc-list that seems to contain all the other variations
> of the font, and according to 'file' it is OpenType font data, so I
> guess it might be some sort of OTF equivalent to a TrueType ttc
> collection.  (gurgles ...) - it is a Variable Font.
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_fonts
> 
> More generally, is this a bug in xdvipdfmx that it gets broken when
> xelatex encounters this Variable Font (just specified as
> 'Cantarell', in the presence of Cantarell-Regular which is also
> found by fontconfig within Cantarell-VF) ?  If so, where should I
> report it ?
> 
> Or are VF fonts in general a problem ?
> 
Gurgle eventually found me some more variable fonts.  But they seem
to be TTF.  From https://github.com/uswds/public-sans/releases
I've now got public-sans-v1.008.zip - in the binaries/variable
directory are two files, Public-Sans-Italic-VF.ttf and
Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf.  I've installed the latter (only),
fontconfig finds:
fc-list | grep Public
/usr/share/fonts/public-sans/Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf: Public Sans:style=SemiBold
/usr/share/fonts/public-sans/Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf: Public Sans,Public Sans Thin:style=Thin,Regular
/usr/share/fonts/public-sans/Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf: Public Sans
/usr/share/fonts/public-sans/Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf: Public Sans:style=Black
/usr/share/fonts/public-sans/Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf: Public Sans,Public Sans Thin:style=ExtraLight
/usr/share/fonts/public-sans/Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf: Public Sans:style=Bold
/usr/share/fonts/public-sans/Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf: Public Sans:style=Medium
/usr/share/fonts/public-sans/Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf: Public Sans Thin:style=Light
/usr/share/fonts/public-sans/Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf: Public Sans:style=ExtraBold
/usr/share/fonts/public-sans/Public-Sans-Roman-VF.ttf: Public Sans:style=Regular

but 'file' reports TrueType Font data, digitally signed, 21 tables, 1st "DSIG",
36 names, Macintosh, type 256 string,
WeightThinExtraLightLightRegularMediumSemiBoldBoldExtraBoldBlack

and this one works (although it is almost unreadbly light in
xelatex, I guess that Thin is the default version.

Going back to Cantarell, I tried swapping out the individual OTF
files and replacing them by Cantarell-VF.otf in case having both the
normal range and the additional VF was the problem, but again I got
xdvipdfmx:fatal: invalid offsize data.

And to repeat an earlier post, file said OpenType font data.

So, although the word on the web seems to be that Variable Fonts are
an extension of OpenType, they only seem to render in xelatex if
they are in TTF format.  Odd, and that one OTF VF font seems to be
the problem.

ĸen
-- 
He could send for Ptraci, his favourite handmaiden. She was special.
Her singing always cheered him up. Life seemed so much brighter when
she stopped.   -- Pyramids