Quotedblbase displaying instead of quotedblright

A user of one of my typefaces ran into a problem that leaves me puzzled. For him, quotedblbase is displaying instead of quotedblright after a word. It happens in MS Word on Windows and on their website (the website is the important one to solve). I’ve tried replicating the problem using OTF, WOFF, and WOFF2 in Font Goggles, Font Gauntlet, InDesign, the X-Type plugin for Chrome, and even Figma but it works as intended every time.

Is there something I might be missing? And if it’s not a problem with my Font, where could be the mistake on their side? It’s just incredibly odd it happens on their website AND in MS Word. Any Ideas?

This sounds like a localisation issue. Is your client German, by any chance?

In the fonts tab, can you search for quote, crank up the size (so the glyph names are visible), and paste a screenshot of the glyphs here?

Thanks for your replies. Sending the screenshot attached. Quotes also work as intended when localized to German (which my client is not tho). Another weird thing that’s occurring is the leading quotes jumping above their intended position (that’s the screenshot showing white type on grey background).




Have you tried Word on your Mac as well (assuming you have it)?

Is the result the same if your client applies one of the stylistic sets (01 or 15)? Does that show the set-appropriate quotedblbase instead of quotedblright?

And have you tried getting your client to send you the exact font file they’re working with and testing with that? It may be that they’re working on an older version which had an issue that was subsequently fixed (perhaps inadvertently) so that you can’t reproduce the issue with your current version.

It appears you are using unaligned mirrored components. Some shifts can occur. Can you:

  • make sure the components in “” did not shift in the other masters,
  • examine the exact files you gave to your client,
  • try exporting after decomposing (also possible with a custom parameter).

Thanks all,

  • I triple checked all masters, played through all weight/italic/opsz combinations in font gauntlet, and looked at all static exports. No shifts occur.
  • Tried my best to replicate the error using the original OTF and WOFF2 files that they were using.
  • Examined the source code of the faulty quote. All to no avail.

Im now going to try:

  • Sending them an export that uses the ‘Decompose Glyphs’ CP
  • Ask them to try stylistic set quotes

I’ll keep you posted. If someone could test the files in MS Word on Windows I’d be very grateful as I don’t have access to that software

Ciron.zip (474.9 KB)

Is your client using TTF files? Component shifts occur for transformed components in TTF exports, so be sure to test with those (not OTF).

They only have OTF, WOFF, and WOFF2 unless they did some sort of conversion themselves

OTFs don’t contain components, so this can not be the issue. In that case, it really must be an issue with their system replacing the quotes automatically with a different type, which is why I was talking about a localisation issue. Double-check that they are using OTFs (and that their WOFF/WOFF2 files are generated from OTFs, not TTFs).