Re: font formats and SVG2

 well explained - Olaf.

 I second your argument. SVG fonts are important and will hopefully be 
 implemented in all browsers. It is a hen and egg problem. Currently, 
 only Batik, Opera and Webkit-based browsers support SVG fonts (only the 
 version with the d-attribute). The market share of these browsers may be 
 around 15-25 percent. The larger market share does not support SVG 
 fonts. No wonder that SVG fonts are not widely used.

 If SVG fonts are implemented beyond just the d-attribute (such as it is 
 the case in Alex'/Abbra implementation) it opens a lot of additional 
 options:

 * Multicolor fonts
 * fonts with patterns
 * fonts with multimedia
 * fonts with animation

 It is also true, what Olaf explained, that in SVG a content author 
 often just needs a subset instead of a complete font. The possibility to 
 add just certain glyphs into or linked to a document allows for smaller 
 file sizes than just linking to a full ttf/otf/woff or whatever font.

 Just my opinion as a content author,
 Andreas


 On Wed, 2 Mar 2011 12:55:53 +0100, Dr. Olaf Hoffmann wrote:
> John Daggett:
>>Can someone explain what the features are that are not offered in 
>> TrueType
>>fonts?
>
> I think, the possibility to embed SVG fonts within a graphics (SVG 
> document)
> is an important feature for authors, as soon as this is widely 
> implemented.
> The glyphs can be created with features from SVG, no need to learn 
> yet
> another format not much related to the graphical problem, the authors 
> has,
> if just a few glyphs are needed for a logo or something like that.
> SVG fonts help to keep things simple for authors, especially for 
> those not
> very interested in creating complete fonts for general use, but just 
> some
> glyphs for a special purpose.
> If the glyph information is directly embedded in the SVG document, it 
> is
> simply possible to provide standalone documents with predictable 
> behaviour
> for the presentation of the glyphs.
> To assume that referenced external fonts in another format are always
> available is risky and I think it will not be acceptable for some 
> designers
> with a quite detailed opinion about the appearance of their graphics 
> and
> how to control this on their own.
>
> Of course, other font formats will be typically pretty useful for 
> documents
> with mainly text (XHTML etc). A detailed control about the appearance
> of a glyph it typically not so important for the author of such text
> documents
> as for some text within an SVG document with close relation to other
> graphical content.
>
> If such an SVG font feature is not available or only optional or not 
> widely
> implemented, authors will use the path element for this purpose and 
> the
> text information will not survive. This happens already know, because
> SVG font implementations in some widely used viewers is not very good
> or not available at all.
> What remains is pure graphics with no more textual, accessible 
> information
> in it. If SVG fonts work, at least some of those authors can be 
> convinced to
> provide accessible documents and not just colorful decorative 
> graphics.
> Therefore it is important to have such a feature to help authors to 
> provide
> more meaningful documents.
>
> Olaf

-- 
 --
 Andreas Neumann
 Böschacherstrasse 10A
 8624 Grüt (Gossau ZH)
 Switzerland

Received on Wednesday, 2 March 2011 12:20:10 UTC