Subset variable fonts

The best way to reduce the weight of a font is to cut out unnecessary symbols from it. The fonttools library is suitable for this. This docker helps build an environment for work.

Usage

• Add fonts to the folder.
• The unicodes.txt file contains a whitelist of characters that will remain.
• In docker-compose you can change the command settings.

docker compose up --build

You can check the results on the website wakamaifondue.com.

Unicodes

Unicode character sets can be found on symbl.cc or wikipedia.org. The default sets for the Inter font are taken from here. Use # to comment out unnecessary things.

Command

Documentation for the subset command can be found on the fonttools.readthedocs.io. Some useful things:

• Use a flag --flavor=woff2 or --with-zopfli --flavor=woff to generate fonts in the required formats.
• Use a flag --layout-features-=frac,nums,dnom to remove some features.
• Use a flag --verbose to display information of the subsetting process.