Re: Questions re web-fonts

John Hudson wrote:

> Christopher Fynn wrote:

>> Some questions for Karsten and others advocating "EOT only" support:

> That's not me, but I want to comment on your questions anyway.

>> If web-fonts (EOT, EOT-lite, or whatever) are intended not to work "on 
>> the desktop", will they work in desktop based web-design applications 
>> without invoking the browser?

>> With regard to fonts, do applications like Office Live, Google Docs 
>> and other so called "cloud computing" apps count as web applications 
>> or as desktop applications? Can I  use  embedded / linked fonts in 
>> documents created with such apps? Do I use web fonts or normal TTF/OTF 
>> fonts for this? If "web fonts", what happens when I want to edit these 
>> same documents in a local application? What fonts do I use when I'm 
>> using a word processor to design web pages with embedded fonts?

> It seems to me that what these questions point to most clearly is the 
> inadequacy of the OT font format specification in terms of addressing, 
> with clarity of intent, the use of fonts in electronic media. Apart from 
> whatever permission bits or tables may be added to that specification -- 
> perfectly legitimately and following ISO standards procedure --, there 
> isn't even clarity about what the existing embedding bits mean in terms 
> of web linking.

> New uses for fonts are emerging all the time, and this is one of the 
> reasons why I prefer to see a single, flexible format. The distinction 
> between 'desktop' and 'web' use seems to me artificial and unwieldy but 
> something that we're being forced towards because the distinction is not 
> being made where it should be made: at the licensing level supported by 
> permissions (even if those permissions are only informative, i.e. there 
> is no enforcement requirement on the part of browsers, apps or systems).

> If we're not allowed the right thing, don't be surprised if we end up 
> with the wrong thing.
> 
> John Hudson

In OTF don't we more or less already have a single, extensible, flexible 
font format? We can add fine grained permission bits, additional 
licensing information and custom tables, etc., etc. to that format while 
remaining compatible with existing implementations.

CF

Received on Wednesday, 15 July 2009 08:12:52 UTC