A font file doesn't just hold glyph shapes — it can also hold rules like "when these two letters sit together, redraw them this way" (the GSUB and GPOS tables). Those rules are identified by four-letter tags: `liga` (standard ligatures), `kern` (kerning), `calt` (contextual alternates), `tnum` (tabular numbers), `ss01`–`ss20` (stylistic sets), and more.
CSS exposes these tags at two levels. Common features get named, high-level properties — `font-variant-ligatures`, `font-variant-numeric`, `font-variant-caps` — that toggle them on and off; features without a named property use the low-level `font-feature-settings: "ss01" 1` syntax to address the tag directly.
The crucial catch: turning on the CSS does nothing if the font itself doesn't ship glyphs or rules for that tag. The demos in this section, working within this site's system-fonts-only constraint, actually measure rendered width with a feature on versus off and report honestly whether a difference showed up — never assuming a font supports a feature just because documentation says fonts often do.
When to use
When choosing a brand typeface, verify which OpenType features it actually supports by inspecting the font file itself (tools like wakamaifondue.com), not by trusting marketing copy.