How to adopt name table cleanup as a design system policy
- Step 1Audit current waste — Pick 3 representative fonts. Run the Name Table Cleaner. Average savings × number of fonts × pages-per-month = your annual bandwidth saved.
- Step 2Pin the policy — Document in design system docs: "All web fonts have name tables cleaned to Windows English nameIDs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14." Cite the savings analysis.
- Step 3Enforce via CI — Add the cleanup script to npm prebuild. CI fails if any font is missing the cleanup step. Future contributors see the policy in action.
Frequently asked questions
Is the policy ever wrong?+
Edge case: fonts shipped to non-browser pipelines (PDF generation, native mobile apps) sometimes need the broader name records. For pure web delivery, cleanup is universally safe.
Does this affect SEO?+
Indirectly positive — smaller fonts → better Core Web Vitals → ranking signal. Direct SEO impact: zero (search engines don't read font metadata).
What's the typical annual saving?+
10-font design system × 5 KB average × 1M page views/month × 12 months = 600 GB/year of bandwidth saved. Material for cost-savings reporting.
Privacy first
Every JAD Font tool runs entirely in your browser using opentype.js and the wawoff2 WASM Brotli encoder. Your fonts never leave your device — verified by zero outbound network requests during processing.