Re: Internationalization (was [w3c-wai-ig] <none>)

> Another possibility is font-embedding, embedding would allow you
*** to provide a font that contains glyphs for all the characters you

I believe font embedding has dropped out of CSS.  I think some of the
problems were:

- it's fraught with intellectual property issues;
- there was no compatibility between browsers as to the font formats that
  could be used;
- authors already knew how to create images of text (and they gives
  them more "creative freedom") so very few authors actually know they
  are even possible.

In a language context, the only time I've seen them used in anger is
for a Telugu page.  However that was misrepresenting the font encoding
and using 8 bit codes, not doing proper Unicode.

I've played with them for Chinese.  I seem to remember a problem with
IE that the font would get downloaded even if available locally and
one had to do some severe hacking of the font specifications in the
style sheets to avoid that.

Even PDF, which better addresses intellectual property issues, often
doesn't have the needed fonts embedded.

Received on Wednesday, 1 October 2003 18:08:13 UTC