Font Names -w3

     
     David and Hussein,
     
     Here we go again... Response on Font Names.
     
     
     Font Names:
     We agree with the goal of designers having complete freedom to choose 
     the fonts they wish to use. The way in which that font is referenced 
     for viewing and printing can be done with font references such as 
     name, numbers, or combinations of both.
     
     For example: Times could be referenced as F1 or FontRef1
                  Bodoni could be referenced as F2 or FontRef2
          This mechanism hides the copyrighted font names so that 
          applications that try to enumerate the name in a font menu, will 
          not be referencing the name illegally. Remember - there should be 
          no reason for the surfer to see a font name. The only reason 
          someone selects a font name is to edit and for that they should 
          have bought the font.
     
     Viewing and printing can be done by using simple alias names.
     
     Using a <Fontname=XXXXXX> tag will result in either the real font or a 
     substitute font being used imaged by the system. Specifiing an <ALT 
     FONT=XXXXXX> implies that all Browsers will hook the system font calls 
     and then try passing the ALTernate FONT reference which again may 
     fail. Implementing and supporting a internal font database to decide 
     or guess what was intended by the author quickly becomes convoluted, 
     confusing, and impossible to support. 
     
     Let's keep it simple and strive for predictability. Let the user set 
     the browser preferences to a single default font. If you get the right 
     font then it looks great... otherwise the KNOWN default font is 
     accessed and the user understands. 
     
     As a means to implement TrueDoc, we proposed two META tags. The first 
     pointed to the URL to retreive the font data, and a second to specify 
     the font reference and point size for the text that followed. This 
     seemed best since it minimized changes to the parsing logic within 
     browsers, provided a clean mechanism to point to a URL to pull the 
     neutral font data, allowed for font referencing, and size parameters.

Received on Wednesday, 7 February 1996 01:55:28 UTC