Re: Downloadable fonts and image replacement

Paul Nelson (ATC) wrote:
> 1. Is there a felt need on the part of web designers for a mechanism for
> fonts to be linked to web pages for better rendering of text instead of
> using static bitmaps?

Definately :-)  Designers love precise control of layout.  And sites in
some languages just require such support when needed characters are not
generally included in fonts.

> 2. If web fonts were widely supported by browsers, how often would you
> create content that uses a font in this way?

> B. occasionally

And one may think of the many bitmap buttons in the Web that could be
just CSS+text+webfont or SVG+text+SVG Font.

> 3. If you used @font-face for web pages you have created, how would you
> use the font(s)?
> 
> E.g. titles, body text, etc.

Everything.

> 4. Fonts, especially those supporting multiple languages or East Asian
> languages can be quite large (long download time). If subsetting
> (providing only the needed characters) is not available would you still
> use the technology?

Yes.  It's the same problem as large images.

One possible solution is to have special OpenType table in the beginning
of OpenType file that is index of the rest of the file, including where
each glyph is in the file.  This would allow optimized usage of
bandwidth but it would be complex for layout engines to implement.

Another variation of this is new directory based format that splits
everything in many files, including one file for each glyph.  And
probably (again) an index file will be needed that lists the rest of the
files.

> 5. What would be your motivating factor for using a web font as opposed
> to creating an image or using a font that the user already has on their
> machine?

It's just the right thing to do.

Regards,
ogi

Received on Thursday, 27 April 2006 19:55:37 UTC