Re: Webfont compression

> However, having said this - I believe that the major benefit of web
> font initiative would be to come up with a solution that can address
> the largest number of web users in a shortest time possible; a
> solution that would give web authors tools they need today. For this
> reasons - I think that a subset of EOT (either EOT with MTX but
> without root strings, or EOT-lite) would be most pragmatic way to make
> web fonts a web reality today, addressing the large base of IE users.

Any of the solutions that have been proposed (webfont, EOT-Lite, ZOT)
are relatively easy to implement, assuming no DRMish features are
involved.  The MTX compression method would take more time to implement
and verify, since it is a non-standard compression scheme based on new
code (from a non-IE browser perspective).

Using a form of EOT hamstrings the interoperable use of web fonts in a
number of ways.  Since no shipping version of IE supports Postscript CFF
fonts, font vendors with only these fonts in their libraries would be at
a competitive disadvantage.  Nor does any shipping version of IE support
simple @font-face rule font descriptors such as font-weight or
font-style, so using bold and italic faces in IE is awkward.

I do agree that a simple format that can be implemented quickly is
ideal.  Better for all browsers, including IE, to make changes so that
@font-face rules are as consistently interoperable as possible. 

John Daggett
Mozilla Japan

Received on Tuesday, 21 July 2009 19:59:21 UTC