Fontformat

Fontformat is a hypothetical or generic container format intended for the portable representation and distribution of digital fonts. It is described as a comprehensive wrapper that can encapsulate font family metadata, per-glyph outlines, metrics, kerning data, typographic features, variation or axis data, and licensing or embedding restrictions. While not an established standard, fontformat is used in discussions of font technology as a conceptual intermediate between source font design data and deployed font resources across platforms.

The structure of fontformat would typically include a file header with a version identifier and a reference to the font family, style attributes (weight, width, slant), and metrics such as units per em, ascender, descender, and line gap. Glyph data would store vector outlines for each glyph, together with hints or bitmap variants if applicable. A kerning table and typographic feature rules (substitution, positioning) would support layout. Optional variation axes enable design-time or run-time interpolation of glyph shapes or metrics for variable fonts. Licensing, embedding permissions, and provenance metadata would be included to manage distribution and usage rights. Compression and packaging mechanisms might be employed to reduce file size while preserving fidelity.

In practice, several real-world formats exist, such as TrueType, OpenType, WOFF, WOFF2, and SVG fonts. Fontformat remains a hypothetical construct or discussion topic used to compare capabilities and interoperability across font systems.