Metrical compatible font for Aptos

Microsoft changed the default font in office applications to Aptos [1], and we don’t have a compatible replacement available. That makes documents incompatible across applications.

I attended the Collabora talk [2] this morning and learned that a development is at least ongoing. In my opinion this is a great opportunity to join the effort with financial contribution. Given the current situation is “complex” we might spend money into a shared pot, meaning to spend it at the design company.

[1] 162872 – Add "Source Sans" to VCL.xcu fallback font list for "Aptos"
[2] Shiny new things in COOL and other LibreOffice Technology news :: LibreOffice Conference 2025 :: pretalx

Aptos can be downloaded from the Microsoft website and installed for personal use by any individual, but cannot be redistributed. This means that we cannot include Aptos in LibreOffice packages, but we can suggest to our users to install Aptos from the proper download link.

When I was in the Board, I suggested co-investing in the development of a metrically compatible Aptos font to include in LibreOffice packages.

This is not meant to argue against the creation of a floss
metric-compatible alternative, but I don’t immediately see a private
use restriction on the EULA of the download, only forbidden

use the software for commercial software hosting services

Note we haven’t had metrically-compatible fonts for most of the MS OpenType font collection (only Calibri and Cambria).

Anyway, not against that, but - wasn’t this proposed in the budgeting discussion a couple of months back?

Final comment: Which company is “the design company”?

We had, but it was removed for this year’s budget, as communicated here, primarily because nobody was working on it.

If there’s an option to get it done, we can always reconsider.