I want to use a font's "bold" variant as "regular" (for example in Keynote), how can I do this?

Question

I found a really lovely font that I want to use. It has several variants:

Sadly, the "Bold" options feels much too heavy for me, I'd rather use "Semibold" instead. And while I can choose the variant specifically inside Apple Keynote...:

...I'd rather just click the "Bold" button:

So is there a way to remove the "bold" variant and replace it with the "semibold" variant? I think I will have to tinker with the original font files then, right? But what exactly do I have to do? I installed FontForge, maybe it's able to do that?

Answer 1

Think a little further. You have probably no legal right to make your own version of a font created by others and use it.

You may think: No problem, nobody knows! Problems start when you distribute something created with the customized font. It's different than what others have under the same name. Others can see totally differently rendered text than you if they happen to have the original.

You may think you rename it and let Word, PDF printer programs etc... embed it to the document. But then you distribute a customized version. It's legal only if it's explicitly allowed in the license file of the font. Such totally free fonts exist, but commercial font suppliers do not allow generating any modified versions.

If the customization happens to be explicitly allowed, you very likely still cannot legally sell the customized font file as a font nor as a part of a product. If you distribute it for free, you must credit the original creator and use different font name.