- Most of the code & data was migrated from the [`fontbakery`](https://github.com/googlefonts/fontbakery/) and [`google/fonts`](https://github.com/google/fonts/) git repositories so that the GF Axis Registry data can be easily available to all our tools. The most immediate user of this module is `Font Bakery` itself, as well as `GFTools`. - Axis Registry definitions are still being gradualy updated on the `google/fonts` repo, on its **axisregistry/** directory (https://github.com/google/fonts/tree/main/axisregistry) and this `axisregistry` python module will try to be kept in sync. - There's an ongoing plan to make this module the main place to update these definitions, avoiding data duplication and guaranteeing uniformity across tools.
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AxisRegistry Python Module
This repository contains a python package providing easy access to the GF Axis Registry. Data was copied (and is kept is sync with) its original location at the axisregistry
directory on the google/fonts
git repo.
As of March 4th, 2022, there's an ongoing plan to soon make this module the central place for updates on the data-set.
GF Axis Registry
This package contains a collection of metadata source files that collectively form the Google Fonts Axis Registry.
The live Axis Registry is at fonts.google.com/variablefonts, and axis definitions are only final when they appear on that page.
When the registry is updated here, a line like axisregistry/axis_name.textproto
should be added to the to_sandbox.txt
file.
Axis Metadata Fields
tag
- Tag for the axis used to specify an axis in
font-variation-settings
and CSS API requests.
- Tag for the axis used to specify an axis in
display_name
- Readable name for the axis, generally the expanded form of
tag
.
- Readable name for the axis, generally the expanded form of
min_value
- Lower bound of the axis. Inclusive.
max_value
- Upper bound of the axis. Inclusive.
default_value
- Default position of the aixs.
precision
- Describes the specificity at which an axis position can be specified.
For example,
0
means values must be specified as whole numbers while-1
means values can be as precise as one decimal place.
- Describes the specificity at which an axis position can be specified.
For example,
fallback
(repeated)- Instance positions along the axis, such as wght 100,200,300,400,500,600,700,800,900.
- A cross-product of fallback positions along all supported axes is created to support legacy browsers that lack variable font support. For axes with CSS3 properties (such as font-weight), the positions accessible to CSS3 should be specified. For axes lacking CSS3 properties a legacy browser is limited to a single position and that position must be at a fallback.
fallback_only
- Describes whether to only use fallback values when presenting to users.
description
- A description of the axis.
Why does Google Fonts have its own Axis Registry?
We support a superset of the OpenType axis registry axis set, and use additional metadata for each axis. Axes present in a font file but not in this registry will not function via our API. No variable font is expected to support all of the axes here.
Any font foundry or distributor library that offers variable fonts has a implicit, latent, de-facto axis registry, which can be extracted by scanning the library for axes' tags, labels, and min/def/max values. While in 2016 Microsoft originally offered to include more axes in the OpenType 1.8 specification (github.com/microsoft/OpenTypeDesignVariationAxisTags), as of August 2020, this effort has stalled. We hope more foundries and distributors will publish documents like this that make their axes explicit, to encourage of adoption of variable fonts throughout the industry, and provide source material for a future update to the OpenType specification's axis registry.