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Ghibliq
Inspiring
March 11, 2020
Answered

Font weight issue with Jaldi font

  • March 11, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 1519 views

Hello!
First of all i want to apologize because i am sure this has been asked before here in some way.. Unfortunately i don't have a clue which keywords to use to find a solution to my problem. 

My issue is that I installed the font "Jaldi" from Google Fonts which comes in both Regular (400) and Bold (700). I am 100% positive that i have installed both font weights. In fact I have installed it multiple times, tested the font in non adobe software (ms office in this case) and I have verified that both weights are installed via the "Font Settings" or "Fonts" option in windows settings. They are both being displayed as properly installed and ready to use.
However, when using InDesign, in fact any adobe CC app, the "bold" weight does not show, neither as a "weight" nor as a seperate font family (sometimes you can choose e.g.: "FFMark - Bolt" instead of just setting the weight of the parent font to "bold".

Unfortunately I am at a loss here. For now I have adjusted the "weight" of the parts I need bold via "Character Colour"->(Choosing Stroke Colour)->"Weight" but as i understand this is kind of a workaround than an actual fix.

Is there any way to just use the regular bold weight that comes with the font?

Attached I have a few Pictures showcasing my issue.
Kind regards!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Jongware

    Unfortunately you found a font that is not actually created correctly – you should report it to Google at its download page (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Jaldi).

     

    Examining the Regular and Bold fonts, I found that there is one setting incorrect: usWeightClass. For the Regular font, this has the value "400" ("Medium/Normal"), but that same value is also used in the Bold font. There it should most likely be "700" ("Bold"). There are a lot of other flags that determine whether a font is considered 'bold', but it seems InDesign uses this particular field. It's not an error or an oversight of InDesign. InDesign actively uses this field, along with usWidthClass – Condensed, Expanded etc. – and Italic – Oblique, Slanted etc. – to sort the list of styles of larger families. In this case it probably thought "Oh we already have a 'Regular' style, so this is not necessary".

     

    I happen to know an incredibly large amount of stuff about fonts 🙂 and so I tested if changing just the field usWeightClass to the proper value would fix things. It did:

     

    Changing just one value inside a complete, complicated, TTF is not recommended. While this part made it work, it is highly likely some other part of the font got corrupted; so, I won't be uploading this 'fixed' version anywhere. It would also create lots of confusion if such a 'fixed' version started a life on its own next to the 'official' version … So, best report it to its creator. It's an easy fix if you have the original data files and so it should not take too long.

    1 reply

    Jongware
    Community Expert
    JongwareCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    March 11, 2020

    Unfortunately you found a font that is not actually created correctly – you should report it to Google at its download page (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Jaldi).

     

    Examining the Regular and Bold fonts, I found that there is one setting incorrect: usWeightClass. For the Regular font, this has the value "400" ("Medium/Normal"), but that same value is also used in the Bold font. There it should most likely be "700" ("Bold"). There are a lot of other flags that determine whether a font is considered 'bold', but it seems InDesign uses this particular field. It's not an error or an oversight of InDesign. InDesign actively uses this field, along with usWidthClass – Condensed, Expanded etc. – and Italic – Oblique, Slanted etc. – to sort the list of styles of larger families. In this case it probably thought "Oh we already have a 'Regular' style, so this is not necessary".

     

    I happen to know an incredibly large amount of stuff about fonts 🙂 and so I tested if changing just the field usWeightClass to the proper value would fix things. It did:

     

    Changing just one value inside a complete, complicated, TTF is not recommended. While this part made it work, it is highly likely some other part of the font got corrupted; so, I won't be uploading this 'fixed' version anywhere. It would also create lots of confusion if such a 'fixed' version started a life on its own next to the 'official' version … So, best report it to its creator. It's an easy fix if you have the original data files and so it should not take too long.

      G
      GhibliqAuthor
      Inspiring
      March 13, 2020

      Thanks for the swift and accurate answer! I am going to open an issue at the Jaldi Github Repo and i will contact google about this

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