Intent to Ship: Support font-feature-settings descriptor in @font-face rule

[Sejal Anand]

Contact emails

sejal...@microsoft.com

Explainer

None

Specification

https://www.w3.org/TR/css-fonts-4/#font-rend-desc

Summary

As CSS allows fine control over font features using 'font-feature-settings' at the element level, Chromium-based browsers currently lack support for these properties within '@font-face' declarations.

This feature supports the string-based syntax for font-feature-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 OpenType fonts become more widely adopted, this enhancement will improve typographic control, reduce redundancy, and support a more scalable, modern approach to web design.

Blink component

Blink>Fonts

Motivation

CSS already provides a 'font-feature-settings' property for controlling OpenType features at the element level. However, Chromium does not currently support it within @font-face declarations, unlike Firefox and Safari.

This limitation prevents developers from configuring font behavior during font loading, forcing redundant declarations across individual components or elements.

Supporting these descriptors in Chromium would let developers define font behavior once—at the source—improving consistency, reducing repetition, and making it easier to verify applied settings through DevTools.

Initial public proposal

None

TAG review

None

TAG review status

Not applicable

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility

Gecko: Shipped/Shipping (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1355366)

WebKit: Shipped/Shipping (https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63618)

Web developers: Positive (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27486680/how-to-set-default-font-feature-settings) 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 and https://issues.chromium.org/issues/324519293

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

Existing DevTools capabilities already cover this.

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?

Yes

https://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-fonts/font-feature-settings-descriptor-02.html?label=master&label=experimental&aligned

https://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-fonts?label=master&label=experimental&aligned&q=font-feature-settings-descriptor-binary.html

Flag name on about://flags

Finch feature name

FontFeatureSettingsDescriptor

Requires code in //chrome?

False

Tracking bug

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40398871

Estimated milestones

Shipping on desktop	139
Shipping on Android	139
Shipping on WebView	139
Shipping on iOS	139

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/5102801981800448?gate=5099341546782720

This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.

[一丝]

Thanks for your work, this is a feature that Blink has been lacking for a long time, very much looking forward to it!

Are you planning to ship the `font-variation-settings` together? We hope they can be released together.

[Sejal Anand]

The review for the font-variation-settings CL is currently underway. Due to notable differences in implementation and interoperability, I have created a separate Chrome status entry for it. If necessary, we can wait until the variation settings CL is merged.

Thank you,

Sejal

---

From: 一丝 <yio...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2025 2:22 PM
To: blink-dev <blin...@chromium.org>
Cc: Sejal Anand <sejal...@microsoft.com>; Ragvesh Sharma's Organization (FTE) <ragvesh...@microsoft.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Intent to Ship: Support font-feature-settings descriptor in @font-face rule

 

You don't often get email from yio...@gmail.com. Learn why this is important

[Daniel Bratell]

This does not show up on the API Owner dashboard in Chromestatus so maybe you have missed pushing it there? There are some other reviews that should be started there at the same time.

/Daniel

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[Philip Jägenstedt]

Hi Sejal,

It's great to the progress on this, I believe it's one of the most highly upvoted font-related features.

https://chromestatus.com/feature/5102801981800448 still doesn't show up in the list of features to review/approve, please feel free to reach out off list if you can't find the right buttons to press.

Best regards,

Philip

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/16078d9e-7d05-49f3-be85-3aaf6d4223a6%40gmail.com.

[Chromestatus]

Contact emails

sejal...@microsoft.com

Explainer

None

Specification

https://www.w3.org/TR/css-fonts-4/#font-rend-desc

Summary

As CSS allows fine control over font features using 'font-feature-settings' at the element level, Chromium-based browsers currently lack support for these properties within '@font-face' declarations. This feature supports the string-based syntax for font-feature-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 OpenType fonts become more widely adopted, this enhancement will improve typographic control, reduce redundancy, and support a more scalable, modern approach to web design.

Blink component

Blink>Fonts

TAG review

None

TAG review status

Not applicable

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility

Gecko: Shipped/Shipping (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1355366)

WebKit: Shipped/Shipping (https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63618)

Web developers: Positive (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27486680/how-to-set-default-font-feature-settings) 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 and https://issues.chromium.org/issues/324519293

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

Existing DevTools capabilities already cover this.

Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?

Yes

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?

Yes

https://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-fonts/font-feature-settings-descriptor-02.html?label=master&label=experimental&aligned https://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-fonts?label=master&label=experimental&aligned&q=font-feature-settings-descriptor-binary.html

Flag name on about://flags

Finch feature name

FontFeatureSettingsDescriptor

Rollout plan

Will ship enabled for all users

Requires code in //chrome?

False

Tracking bug

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40398871

Estimated milestones

Shipping on desktop	139
Shipping on Android	139
Shipping on WebView	139
Shipping on iOS	139

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).

None

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/5102801981800448?gate=5197421990379520

[Sejal Anand]

Hi Philip, Daniel, 

I have initiated the API owner review along with other reviews, which should now be visible. A separate email has been sent for the review. Please take a moment to look over it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you,

Sejal

---

From: Philip Jägenstedt <foo...@chromium.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 2, 2025 9:08 PM
To: Daniel Bratell <brat...@gmail.com>
Cc: Sejal Anand <sejal...@microsoft.com>; 一丝 <yio...@gmail.com>; blink-dev <blin...@chromium.org>; Ragvesh Sharma's Organization (FTE) <ragvesh...@microsoft.com>
Subject: Re: [blink-dev] Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Intent to Ship: Support font-feature-settings descriptor in @font-face rule

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAARdPYc5DXw12jErMUPhG3ic0bFfk8avt2L9R4DODzw7pGtBWg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Philip Jägenstedt]

LGTM1, thank you for addressing this pain point for developers!

The scope of this intent is font-feature-settings, but now that https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/6582382 has been merged, do you want to ship support for font-feature-settings and font-variation-settings together? I think that would be great, but my LGTM is not conditional on it.

I also confirmed that the linked tests are failing on stable but passing on experimental, so everything seems to be in good order!

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[Sejal Anand]

Thank you Philip for your approval, font-variation-settings CL is also merged, I'll ship both of them together.

---

From: Philip Jägenstedt <foo...@chromium.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 5, 2025 1:54 PM
To: Chromestatus <ad...@cr-status.appspotmail.com>
Cc: blin...@chromium.org <blin...@chromium.org>; Ragvesh Sharma's Organization (FTE) <ragvesh...@microsoft.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Support font-feature-settings descriptor in @font-face rule

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAARdPYdtSg3QSrq8s2nj4M4skhd4bdyJQyXzocbBx%3D7xs9Pf6w%40mail.gmail.com.

[Alex Russell]

LGTM2

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[Mike Taylor]

LGTM3

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