Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Discussions about the development of TrueType and OpenType fonts.
Post Reply
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Over the years numerous people talked about Color Fonts, and there have been several experiments with this, but so far no adapted standardization. For example:
Mozilla - Fonts with multi-colored, animated glyphs (through SVG)
Google - fonts with embedded color images
Apple Color Emoji - A font which contains coloured (.png based) Unicode Emoji characters
AppleColorEmojiFont.png
AppleColorEmojiFont.png (167.36 KiB) Viewed 27424 times
And today Microsoft announced they will submit an extension to the Open Font Format for colour support in OpenType fonts.

This extension will most likely be supported by Windows 8.1, and will include a new (colored) version of Segoe UI Emoji.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by William »

Erwin Denissen wrote: This extension will most likely be supported by Windows 8.1, and will include a new (colored) version of Segoe UI Emoji.

Is there any reason why such a chromatic OpenType font could not work on another platform, such as the Windows xp system that is running on the computer that I am using, provided that there were a suitable application program to use it in?

I have added a note, referencing this thread, to the thread "Galileo Lettering font" in the Gallery forum so as to bring that thread to the top of the list as the thread is about a collection of TrueType fonts that could provide glyph artwork for producing a chromatic OpenType font.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=859

Would it be possible for High-Logic to produce a stand-alone wordprocessor program that could use such a chromatic font?

The ability of High-Logic to react rapidly to new situations could mean that High-Logic could be the first to make available such a product for use on older systems.

William Overington

28 June 2013
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Erwin Denissen »

If this extension becomes part of the standard, it will most likely become available on numerous platforms.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9869
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

I cannot help but think that this will be an extension to the format that will be very slow to be taken up and supported by applications.

I hope that you won't waste any time on supporting it in FontCreator until it is widely supported by Word-processors, DTP applications, and browsers.

There is much more that deserves priority over this for FontCreator 8 and beyond, such as improvements to kerning and full OpenType feature support.

Embedded bitmap support might be a step needed towards support for colour in fonts, but I would prefer to see a vector format like Mozilla's SVG suggestion implemented in the specification. Coloured Emoticons could just as well be created using SVG or PNG as by supporting them fonts. Coloured text with all kinds of gradient or bitmap fills is already possible in DTP and drawing applications.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Dick Pape
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 1360
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2003 1:19 pm
Location: North Dallas, Texas

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Dick Pape »

I don't see any discussion of "create programs". They all seem to be premade (made in the laboratory) for specific applications...
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by William »

I have started a thread named as follows.

Could a future version of Scanahand support colour fonts?

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4484

William Overington

4 July 2013
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Erwin Denissen »

William wrote:Could a future version of Scanahand support colour fonts?
It could be possible, but we'll first have to wait for the specs.

Here is how it will work:

There is a base glyph / fallback glyph in case one doesn't want color enabled fonts.
colorglyphsbase.png
colorglyphsbase.png (4.17 KiB) Viewed 27347 times
And one or more glyphs; each with a palette index (color). However the font designer can allow the user to choose a color as well.
colorglyphsa.png
colorglyphsa.png (6.25 KiB) Viewed 27347 times
Then combine them to make a colorful character:
colorglyphsb.png
colorglyphsb.png (4.84 KiB) Viewed 27347 times
It seems transparency is also supported, as well as multiple palettes, to address the color background issues for example.

So far this raises more and more questions, so we just have to wait for the specs...
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Erwin Denissen »

FontCreator 7.5, released in August 2013, allows you to make your own colour fonts, as it fully supports the new multi-color font extension which Microsoft added in Windows 8.1.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Things are moving forward, as with the latest release of Mozilla Firefox (version 32.0 available through the official Mozilla release channel since September 2, 2014) the Microsoft color technology is supported! They don't use the Windows API DirectDraw, but implemented color support themselves, so I suspect it is available on several platforms.

Here is how our color font demo page looks like with Firefox:
ScalableColorFontLogo2.png
ScalableColorFontLogo2.png (44.42 KiB) Viewed 21812 times
And some more color fonts:
Monstre Color Font:
monstre.png
monstre.png (95.25 KiB) Viewed 21812 times
And the amazing SocialFonts Demo 2014:
socialfont.png
socialfont.png (488.82 KiB) Viewed 21812 times
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9869
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

This is good news. Application support is vital if this is ever going to take off.
Colour Glyphs in Firefox.png
Colour Glyphs in Firefox.png (30.61 KiB) Viewed 25356 times
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Erwin Denissen »

The upcoming update of Windows 10, scheduled for this summer will most likely support OpenType SVG color fonts. This rumor comes from a very respectable person, so it must be true.

Great news, and this might be the best reason for us to start supporting this color format soon.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Erwin Denissen »

While doing some other tests in Word 2016, I was really surprised to see color font support in Word!
ColorInWord.png
ColorInWord.png (34.85 KiB) Viewed 22745 times
It has some flaws in it (the auto color for text after a color glyph is set to white, so will become invisible; manually setting that back to black fixes it sort of), but this is another step forward for color fonts!
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9869
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

The Vivaldi Browser already supports Colour Fonts, and that is based on the Blink/Chromium rendering engine, so I guess that Chrome Browser supports it too.

I took a look at Segoe Emojji in FontCreator. Some of the colour glyphs have more members than will fit on the Members palette without scrolling, so maybe that needs a slight resdesign to make it show horizontally, or in more columns?
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Erwin Denissen wrote:While doing some other tests in Word 2016, I was really surprised to see color font support in Word!
Unfortunately printing color fonts will just print the black and white fallback outlines.

Also if you export a Word document to PDF, the text will no longer support color fonts, and will also revert to the black and white outlines.

Both print and export to PDF tests performed with Word 2016 (Microsoft Office 365 version 1702).
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Colors Join OpenType Font Format

Post by Erwin Denissen »

We've just released FontCreator 13, coming with support for both scalable color font extensions. So now you can create OpenType color fonts with either COLR, SVG (or both).
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Post Reply