Font issues on Illustrator

[fiorenzac53006459]

Hello,
I am writing you about the ROBOTO FLEX font, as our client’s graphic team and actually ourselves too, have several problems using it.
(We did several tests between us but keep having the issue)

Whenever the font is customized with the variable parameters, each time a file is saved and then re-opened, the customization is no longer recognized, therefore it is not possible to provide a file to the supplier if not in a traced. Not only doesn’t it take the correct customization but it actually transforms it into a myriad.

(Please find attached an example coming from our client of what the file looks like when opened.)

Also, Just for your info: The client’s team uses Creative Cloud

And these are the programs used always updated at the moment

Illustrator 27.2

In Design 18.1

Photoshop 24.1

Some questions:
- Could the problem come from having a unique and therefore complex variable file to manage?
- Are you planning on having a single file for each weights ?

Thank you in advance for your help

[Doug A Roberts]

I tried the font and got this result:

My changes to the variable parameters are visually maintained, but the font is listed as Myriad Pro Regular 12pt. Tried in a document with a different default style and it still came back Myriad.

I tried a couple of other variable fonts and had no issues, so I guess it's either something specific to this font or to fonts with a particular set of variable parameters (I notice this has a lot of variable settings, more than I've seen before).

[Met1]

Just because something is available doesn't necessarily mean it's created to a high standard. (Especially if it's free).

I don't have any experience of Roboto, but why not do a save as copy and outline fonts. You're original file still won't retain the parameters (but you can make a note of them if you have to do further revisions), and you're outlined version should print without any issues.

[Bobby Henderson]

Roboto is Google's primary typeface for the Android operating system. Multiple varieties of Roboto are available via the Google Fonts web site. Roboto Serif Variable is pretty cool. It has 4 variable axes. Roboto Flex is even more impressive (at least when it works properly); it has 13 variable axes. It's crazy.

[Bobby Henderson]

I think you might have a buggy copy of Roboto Flex. When did you and your team members download/install it? Was it downloaded from the Google Fonts web site? The fonts hosted at the Google Fonts web site may be updated from time to time (for better or worse).

I've had copies of Roboto Flex Variable and Roboto Serif Variable and both work normally in my installations of Illustrator and Photoshop. One thing I do notice about my copy of Roboto Flex, it has a whopping 13 variable axes that show up in Adobe Illustrator, but other applications like CorelDRAW only show 5 variable axes. Weird.

I think the people who curate the fonts at the Google Fonts web site really need to do more product testing if possible. I rarely have any trouble with fonts within Adobe Illustrator; usually any glitches I encounter are due to conflicts with other applications (cough: CorelDRAW). I've seen a lot of fonts from the Google Fonts site just not want to work at all within CorelDRAW. I'll try to select the typeface in the fonts menu and apply it to a text object and then the text object reverts to default Arial. Sometimes the fonts themselves preview as Arial. I was having such an issue with Alegreya Sans recently. I tried downloading a newer version and it worked properly.

[Zachary Quinn Scheuren]

The font is unusual, but I don't think it's buggy. @fiorenzac53006459 Are you customizing any of the axes named XTRA, XOPQ, YOPQ, YTLC, YTUC, YTAS, YTDE, or YTFI? Those are all hidden axes that should not appear in the UI. InDesign correctly hides them, but Illustrator and Photoshop currently have a bug where they display these axes. If you stick to the axes meant for users wght, wdth, opsz, slnt, or GRAD then it should work as expected and your customization will be applied when you reopen the document. 

[Bobby Henderson]

I didn't know the other 8 axes in Roboto Flex after the first 5 in the list were meant to be hidden. Most of those additional axes have an obvious, specific effect on a text string, such as changing the x-height (ytlc) or cap height (ytuc) in letters. The "xtra" slider seems like an odd duplicate of the width slider. I can't tell what "ytfi" does; it doesn't appear to have any effect on the letters.

[Zachary Quinn Scheuren]

The axes are all defined at https://fonts.google.com/variablefonts#axis-definitions and the extra axes are parametric axes . I just checked the latest development version of the font on GitHub RobotoFlex......ttf and it has some problems. For a font like this everyone should be clear which version they are using and where it came from because there are multiple versions out there. The parametric axes in the version I tested are set to be hidden, but if they aren't hidden they will still show problems in some apps because the other tables in the font are not correctly handling these axes.  

[Bobby Henderson]

That is interesting regarding the additional axes in Roboto Flex. It's also interesting the typeface has some technical problems. That's because I've seen technical issues with a multitude of other type families from the Google Fonts web site. They all seem to work okay in Adobe Illustrator, but I run into problems using them in certain other rival applications. For example, in CorelDRAW if I try to apply a certain typeface from Google Fonts to a text string the text object may revert to default Arial. Sometimes the fonts will preview in the font menu looking like Arial rather than a proper rendering of the typeface. Occasionally the problem can be fixed by downloading the typeface again from Google Fonts. I did that just recently with Alegreya Sans; the version of it I had would glitch-out to Arial. I downloaded it again and the newly installed fonts worked correctly. In other cases downloading again doesn't fix the issue. I've been able to get around the problem a couple times when the affected Google typeface was also available via Adobe Fonts. I had to do that with Open Sans for one project not too long ago.

[caio.design]

I am having the same issues with variable fonts in Illustrator 28.4 -  After closing and reopening the file the variable fonts are changed and clicking on it it just shows as Myriad - Anybody have a solution about the problem

[Monika Gause]

Which fonts are giving you issues?

Do you have font management installed?

Which system are you using?

Did you already reset the Illustrator preferences (which will erase all your settings)?

How large are your files?

Where are you saving them?

About how long are we talking?

[nickr72922843]

I'm having this exact same issue with Helvetica Now Variable.  Whenever reopening, it displays Myriad 12pt in the Character panel and I cannot edit existing work.  

Have you figured out any resolution? 

[Bobby Henderson]

Have the problems you're seeing with Helvetica Now Variable just started to happen or has the issue been present for some time? Are you using font files of Helvetica Now that were bought outright or are you using them via Monotype's font subscription service? Which version of Illustrator are you running? Is your computer a Mac or Windows-based PC? Is your computer running any kind font management software?

I purchased a license of Helvetica Now Variable a couple years ago when it was first released (and greatly discounted in price). I checked the MyFonts web site to see if Monotype released any updates to the font files; no updates appear to be available. The fonts seem to be working properly on my computer system in both the current general release build of Illustrator and the beta version. I've saved some sample documents with point text and area text objects styled in Helvetica Now Variable, closed Illustrator and re-launched it. The documents re-open with Helvetica Now Variable working properly. I'm using a Windows-based system.

Funny thing though: I've been seeing Helvetica Now Variable acting oddly in an Illustrator rival, CorelDRAW. Some documents with live text objects styled in Helvetica Now will reopen with the variable settings changed. The optical axis gets dropped from 30 to 4. Widths get dropped to 50. The weight axis is the only thing that remains unchanged.