Intent to Ship: Support font-variation-settings descriptor in @font-face rule
Chromestatus
Contact emails
sejal...@microsoft.comExplainer
NoneSpecification
https://www.w3.org/TR/css-fonts-4/#font-rend-descSummary
As CSS allows developers to adjust a font’s weight, width, slant, and other axes using the `font-variation-settings` property on individual elements, Chromium-based browsers lack support for this property within `@font-face` declarations. This feature supports the string-based syntax for 'font-variation-settings' as defined in CSS Fonts Level 4. Invalid or unrecognized feature tags will be ignored per specification. No binary or non-standard forms are supported. As variable fonts become more widely adopted for both performance and typographic flexibility, adding support for this descriptor in Chromium would enhance control, reduce repetition, and support a more scalable, modern approach to web typography.
Blink component
Blink>FontsTAG review
NoneTAG review status
Not applicableRisks
Interoperability and Compatibility
Gecko: Shipped/Shipping (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1435984)
WebKit: Positive (https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/525)
Web developers: Positive (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/78349575/font-variation-settings-arent-applying-in-font-face) Over 30 users have indicated that they are affected by this issue and its related duplicates, as noted in https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40398871, https://issues.chromium.org/issues/41427637 and https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40145134
Other signals:
WebView application risks
Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such that it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?
None
Debuggability
None
Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?
YesIs this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?
Yeshttps://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-fonts/font-variation-settings-descriptor-01.html?label=experimental&label=master&aligned https://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-fonts/font-variation-settings-descriptor-02.html?label=experimental&label=master&aligned https://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-fonts/font-variation-settings-descriptor-03.html?label=experimental&label=master&aligned https://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-fonts/font-variation-settings-serialization-002.html?label=experimental&label=master&aligned
Flag name on about://flags
NoneFinch feature name
FontVariationSettingsDescriptorRollout plan
Will ship enabled for all usersRequires code in //chrome?
FalseTracking bug
https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40398871Estimated milestones
| Shipping on desktop | 140 |
| Shipping on Android | 140 |
| Shipping on WebView | 140 |
| Shipping on iOS | 140 |
Anticipated spec changes
Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to known github issues in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution may introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g., changing to naming or structure of the API in a non-backward-compatible way).
NoneLink to entry on the Chrome Platform Status
https://chromestatus.com/feature/5221379619946496?gate=6357931045683200
Philip Jägenstedt
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Chris Harrelson
LGTM1, I'm happy to see this ship too.I took a look at all tests with font-variation-settings in the path, and see that calc-in-font-variation-settings.html is still failing, but the same in all browsers. Can you take a look at this test before shipping this? If the test is wrong per spec, just updating it would be great.
On Tue, Jul 8, 2025 at 7:50 AM Chromestatus <ad...@cr-status.appspotmail.com> wrote:
WebKit: Positive (https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/525)
Daniel Bratell
LGTM3
/Daniel
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Sejal Anand
Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 8:57 PM
To: Chris Harrelson <chri...@chromium.org>; Philip Jägenstedt <foo...@chromium.org>
Cc: Chromestatus <ad...@cr-status.appspotmail.com>; blin...@chromium.org <blin...@chromium.org>; Ragvesh Sharma's Organization (FTE) <ragvesh...@microsoft.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Support font-variation-settings descriptor in @font-face rule
Chris Harrelson
Thank you all for your approvals.
@Chris Harrelson - have updated the signal.
@Philip Jägenstedt - After investigating the test, I found that it has been failing since last month after a new assert was added in this merge. I have created a bug to update the test and assigned it to myself.Shall I go ahead and ship this?