Best way to merge masters (Roman + Italic) or to export separate files into single variable font

1

Being able to merge masters that were created separately for roman/italics into one single variable file is super tricky now. It would be interesting if the add other font as master could consider:

  • Adding the missing characters that are incoming, automagically.
  • Getting the proper italic angle (it doesn’t import correctly if the roman doesn’t have that parameter set
  • Keeping the anchors and components correctly

I also take your suggestions on the easier way of doing it, if you have it!

2

Not sure about that.

I’ll fix that

What do you mean?

You don’t explain what exactly you are doing. So I can’t suggest improvements.

3

Sorry if this may have sound cryptic.

Here’s trying to clear it up. I have a 4 master roman and 4 master italic - each with certain glyphs built with different, non-exporting components - some smart components included.

If I export UFOs from Italics and then add them as masters in Roman, not having the properly named component glyphs make them simply disappear - resulting in a very bad import of the italic masters.

In the end I’d like to export a variable font that ships with italic=0 and italic=1 so that I can have both styles in the same file.

But the workflow for this is not the easiest if you started the project with separate roman/italic files.

https://www.loom.com/share/04e055d92ab9489dab1e37a3fa56dbc6 - here’s a quick screencast explaining what I’m up to.

4

Why are you exporting a ufo? You can just open both .glyphs files and import all four masters at once.

But when you like to export a variable font, you should not merge them into one file. Because that file needs to be compatible. You can still have an italic axis with two files. It holds together by the SATA table.

5

UFO or just plain export, the result and workflow is the same, with the difference in the source file not being added to the destination.

As for exporting two files and having the axis, how does this work in software? Is possible to merge them via ttx or similar?

6

Why do you need to export anything? You are still trying to merge the file or something else?

7

export as in generate the final font…

8

Then you need to start over with explaining what you are trying to do. You said that you export as ufo and then adding it as master to the roman. My question was why do you export it as an .ufo instead of importing it from the italic four master .glyphs file? I understand the general problems with the italic angle (that I’ll fix) and the glyphs (most likely not).

But the big problem is that from that eight master file you will not be able to produce a working variable font. So don’t to all that merging in the first place.