Variable Font

A single
Font
file that contains a continuous range of stylistic variations along one or more design axes such as
Weight
, width, slant, and
Optical Size
, rather than requiring a separate file for each predefined instance. Introduced in the
OpenType
1.8 specification (2016), variable fonts use quadratic or cubic interpolation between designer-defined master outlines to generate any intermediate value on the fly. This dramatically reduces the number of files needed to serve a full
Type Family
, lowers bandwidth on the web, and gives designers fine-grained, real-time control over typographic expression.