The future of displaying non-system fonts on web
9 Feb 2009 - 9:39am
2 replies
1097 reads
Martina Gobec
2009
Hello all,
I am wondering if any of you know of existing or upcoming
technologies, which would enable display of rich typography
(non-system fonts) on websites - without the user having the
particular font installed on his computer and still preserving the
text copy+paste function?
I am already aware of sIFR: http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/sifr/
But this technology is mostly suitable for headlines and I am
wondering if there is anything on the horizon that would bring some
extra possibilities into also displaying body text?
I am also very interested in hearing any strong arguments against it.
Thanks,
Martina
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Comments
Safari (and I believe Opera) already allows you to do this: http://www.broken-links.com/2008/03/18/safari-31-introduces-web-fonts-fo... (also: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/cssatten)
Coming soon to Firefox? (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70132)
Hi Martina - I wrote an article on the downsides of using sIFR (even
for headlines). Please have a look as its use poses both
accessibility and usability challenges.
http://www.likewowonline.net/web/ued/sifr-usability-study.html
As for future support? At the moment there are two competing
proposals for supporting non-system fonts on the web: CSS3's @font
directive and Microsoft's proprietary EOT.
Both of those will only be available in browser's that support them.
Considering the amount of time it takes us to safely assume a majority
of the world has upgraded to a particular browser version I would say
we're 5 years off for full support and 2-3 years off for practical
progressive enhancement.
Sitepoint has a good breakdown of the issue as well:
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/07/30/custom-web-fonts-pick-your-poison/
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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38387