typst / typst/typst

Bold variant of Helvetica font not found

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bug text
Dominant language
Rust
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Description

When using a copy of Helvetica LT Std, the bold variant is not found even though other applications have no problems. I read in another issue that the output of variant-inspect could be useful for tracking down ttf-parsing issues (this is an otf file, but still seems to work) so here's that.

Normal font
Image

Bold font
Image

When using it in typst, it just doesn't work.

Normal Helvetica \
#text(font: "Helvetica LT Std", fallback: false, weight: "bold", [BOLD TEXT])

Output
Image

typst fonts --variants just gives ... no variants for any of the adobe Helveticas (?)
EDIT: grepping only the font family name only returns the line with the font family name 🤦
Image

typst fonts --variant finds them?

Image

fc-list finds them and categorizes their variants correctly

Image

Reproduction URL

No response

Operating system

Linux

Typst version
  • I am using the latest version of Typst

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the Helvetica LT Std case from the issue and compare Typst's variant-inspect and typst fonts --variant results with fc-list. Trace how the font's bold variant is detected and selected; done means the provided Typst example selects the bold font while preserving normal Helvetica behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
compilers
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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