P: Arabic variable fonts support in adobe apps in general

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The latest adobe apps that support variable fonts doesn't support Arabic as the letters takes the isolated form without the basic Arabic features like initial, medial and final and so on  

Is there any intention to support Arabic in the future ?

Here is the link of the original post I posted in adobe forums

https://forums.adobe.com/message/10427582

[abodyammar]

The latest adobe apps that support variable fonts doesn't support Arabic as the letters takes the isolated form without the basic Arabic features like initial, medial and final and so on  

Is there any intention to support Arabic in the future ?

[c.pfaffenbichler]

The latest adobe apps that support variable fonts doesn't support Arabic as the letters takes the isolated form without the basic Arabic features like initial, medial and final and so on 

So Arabic variable fonts are available?

Who produced them?

Maybe you should also post over at

Type & Typography

[Zaid Al Hilali]

This is Photoshop forum. Photoshop do supports Arabic well. Can you show examples perhaps or share a font for testing.

[abodyammar]

Here is an example of the error

the word عربي looks great in the first line because it's not a variable font

The bottom version is a variable font the letters is all isolated  ع ر ب ي and it should look like the upper version

[abodyammar]

There is not many Arabic fonts, the font i'm talking about is google's noto sans Arabic Variable it's from github

and also I tested myself some other (wrok in progress fonts and I got the same result)

[Zaid Al Hilali]

I downloaded the font "Noto Sans" it just doesn't have any Arabic glyphs! Can you share the font which you're using for better testing.

[abodyammar]

ok

Here it is

link

[Zaid Al Hilali]

The font you shared with me showed the same problem as in your first post up here when used it in latest Adobe applications. However, when I used it in older InDesign CS5, it worked well.

I'm not sure who generated this particular font, because I went and downloaded same font from Google directly and it worked fine even on latest Adobe applications. Now legally I wouldn't do this, but practically we could regenerate the font you shared using our tables to make it function well with latest Adobe applications.

What are the advantages of variable fonts any way?

[abodyammar]

the problem isn't the font itself it is in the adobe applications like Ps and Ai the support for arabic variable is not complete
the font was just an example and the font itself is from the github page of google fonts

and of course the versions of the web page you mentioned will work fine because they are not variable fonts they are regular fonts

as for the advantages of variable fonts , actually it's a game changing technology you can have a full font family with all the wights and widths in a single file , another thing you can have the exact weight that want not like regular font you have to choose from light or bold or ... because it's variable you can choose a weight that's between light and bold because you have all the range in between

I created a simple variable font to show you the problem

here is the test of the same font in axis-praxis.org

and in adobe apps like Ps and Ai

[c.pfaffenbichler]

If there is indeed an incomplete implementation of the feature in Photoshop you might want to post a report over at

Photoshop Family Customer Community

That Forum is being monitored and maybe one of the Adobe employees will be able to provide some insight.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

One thing I'm not sure about which is why the font I downloaded from the font page directly worked in Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign? While it didn't work for you?

[abodyammar]

the answer is easy you downloaded a regular fonts not variable ... they work on my pc too , the question is not about that at all , the variable version is the one that's not working  and if you checked again in the first post , the screenshot shows the controls of the variable font

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Got it. I have no answer, but please update this post if you posted elsewhere and managed to find an answer.

[abodyammar]

ok

Thank you

[PECourtejoie]

HEllo, how does that font behave in another program?

[abodyammar]

the technology itself is new so it's supported in adobe apps and web browsers (new versions only) and the windows 10 as a system supports it

it works fine in chrome as showed in the youtube video above

[David Mohr]

Howdy Abody,

I can see what you're talking about using both Noto Sans Arabic as well as some flavors of Markazi Text.  It does definitely appear better on Mac and I've logged a bug to look into this.  At the time we added variable font enablement, there were no such fonts that supported Arabic.  If you know of other fonts I should look into, please let me know.

Thanks,

David

[David Mohr]

Howdy Abody,

When we first released variable fonts, there were none that had Arabic glyphs in them.  Now, there are a few and the results are mixed -- on Mac, Markazi works just fine, but not so always on Windows.  Noto Sans Arabic is problematic on both platforms.  If you have additional variable fonts with Arabic glyphs, please share and I'll test them too.  I have opened a bug on this issue and hopefully we'll get this resolved soon.

Thanks,
David

[abodyammar]

Thank you for your attention

there is also Clother Variable it can be tested here

v-fonts.com

[mosleme84433398]

Adobe PS & Ai do not support left-to-right opentype features in arabic variable font.

This is a bug that caused Arab users not to use variable fonts.