How to select font features?

[ghost]

I want to use Inter as my system font (on Windows and GNU/Linux), but I don't know how to toggle features. Should I build the font on my own, or change my system settings?

Thanks!

[Derpitron]

AFAIK opentype features can't be changed on windows and linux for UI fonts. You could try a program such as this https://github.com/twardoch/fonttools-opentype-feature-freezer which lets you select the features you want, then create font files for it.

[ghost]

That's really a life saver!

[Akselmo]

Thanks, I managed to enable slashed zero and Stylistic set 2 with this:

pyftfeatfreeze -f 'ss02,zero' Inter-V.ttf Inter-Vnew.ttf

[alexleduc76]

Just don't use the variable font version. I use Inter Light (static version) on Linux and it works perfectly

[kepstin]

On Linux, it's possible to create a fontconfig file which will configure features in many apps. For example, I'm using this config file on one of my systems to set some defaults when using Inter as UI font:

(Install this to ~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/20-inter-features.conf for your user or /etc/fonts/conf.d/20-inter-features.conf for system-wide)

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
	<match target="font">
		<test qual="any" name="family"><string>Inter</string></test>
		<!-- These are set with "prepend" so that applications which configure features don't get overridden -->
		<edit name="fontfeatures" mode="prepend">
			<string>tnum</string><!-- Tabular numbers -->
			<string>ss03</string><!-- Curved r -->
			<string>ss04</string><!-- Disambiguation w/o zero -->
			<string>calt off</string><!-- Contextural alternatives -->
		</edit>
	</match>
</fontconfig>

A notable application which will not follow this configuration is Firefox - it seems to have native Opentype feature support, and ignores the feature settings that fontconfig suggests.

[Derpitron]

This seems like a better answer than mine, though it is only for Linux.