Typeface identification

[Peter Flynn]

On 26/04/2023 11:38, Jonathan Kew wrote:
> On 26/04/2023 10:10, Peter Flynn wrote:
>> [...] but Raleway (for example) has no indication that I can find
>> that it is a sans-serif typeface.
> 
> In theory, for OpenType fonts you should be able to determine this from 
> the panose classification values in the OS/2 table.

Ooooh. I love being proved wrong! Thank you. I'm only just beginning to 
use OT fonts, so I hadn't come across this.
> 
> And looking at Raleway, it does indeed identify itself as sans-serif:

Is there a command-line tool that extracts panose data? I can see 
several tools to *edit* it, and tools like panosifier that you have to 
embed in a Python script, but not a simple extracter. neither fc-list 
nor otfinfo make any mention of panose.

>      <panose>
>        <bFamilyType value="2"/>        Latin Text
>        <bSerifStyle value="11"/>       Normal Sans
>        <bWeight value="5"/>            Book
>        <bProportion value="3"/>        Modern
>        <bContrast value="3"/>          Very Low
>        <bStrokeVariation value="1"/>   No Fit
>        <bArmStyle value="1"/>          No Fit
>        <bLetterForm value="6"/>        Normal/Rounded
>        <bMidline value="0"/>           Any
>        <bXHeight value="3"/>           Constant/Standard
>      </panose>
> 
> However, I wouldn't trust the panose data to be accurate/meaningful 

That's another whole problem. Metadata isn't a concern for most makers.

> many of the fonts out there in the world... maybe some heroic person 
> would care to do (or has done) a survey to see how often these values 
> are set reasonably by designers/vendors.

I can certainly do it for the fonts I'm dealing with from the LaTeX Font 
Catalog if I can find a tool to extract the data in a manipulable form 
(XML would be perfect).

Peter