STAT table errors in variable fonts

Since adding STAT table handling to Samsa, I’ve been finding apparent errors in several variable fonts including IBM Plex Sans and Work Sans. (These are the only two Google fonts I have tested, so I can only assume the problem is widespread.)

The issue is that the STAT in the Italic VF repeats the string “Italic” in all the weight entries. Here is a screengrab from Work Sans Italic (WorkSans-Italic-VariableFont_wght.ttf) in Samsa.


This leads to incorrect “composed names” such as Light Italic Italic.


In fact, each of these strings is supposed to refer to a single axis, so the list of strings in Work Sans Italic’s Weight STAT should be: Thin, ExtraLight, Light, Regular, Medium, SemiBold, Bold, ExtraBold, Black. Only then can apps build menus where users select meaningful instance names from one axis at a time.

Work Sans Roman (WorkSans-VariableFont_wght.ttf) has a less important issue where the string “Roman” in the Italic axis should be marked elidable (flag = 2). When fixed, we would see composed names of the form “SemiBold” rather than “SemiBold Roman”. Finally, “Regular” should also be marked elidable in both Roman and Italic.


[Try in Samsa](https://lorp.github.io/samsa/src/samsa-gui.html)