Re: New work on fonts at W3C

On Jun 23, 2009, at 6:52 PM, Ambrose Li wrote:

> 2009/6/23 Brad Kemper <brad.kemper@gmail.com>:
>> On Jun 23, 2009, at 3:25 PM, "Levantovsky, Vladimir"
>> <Vladimir.Levantovsky@MonotypeImaging.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Applying Unicode-range that encompasses a complete character set  
>>> for a
>>> certain language is one thing, but using a selective, non- 
>>> consecutive
>>> set of Unicode code-points is something completely different. I  
>>> wonder
>>> if anyone actually tried doing this. I might work for languages  
>>> where
>>> each character has a unique one-to-one mapping to a single glyph,  
>>> but
>>> even then things like kerning will get broken.
>>
>> I don't know, but I thout it would be a fairly common use case,  
>> such as
>> using the numbers from a different font or substituting a single  
>> missing
>> character from another font. It seems like something that would  
>> need to work
>> right for Unicode ranges to fulfil their promise.
>
> I'd say Vladimir is totally right that kerning will get broken even if
> we stay within the confines of Latin languages. Kerning simply isn't
> defined across fonts. We obviously are considering this to have better
> typography, and if we do such things (font splitting) it will be
> literally "[going] to such a great length and make extra efforts in
> handling fonts";

The important part you left out of that quote was "Web authors". He  
said "I am also stunned that you seem to be suggesting that web  
authors should go to such a great length and make extra efforts in  
handling fonts". So my strong reaction was to the notion that this  
would be harder for Web authors, which is also what he said about John  
Daggett's idea. There is nothing to support the notion that once a  
tool is created to alter the font, that it would be any worse for for  
the author (assuming the tool does what it is supposed to).

So, OK: I will accept, based on what you both said, that font spitting  
is not a viable option. Presumably kerning cannot be done between two  
separate fonts, even if they contain all the same metrics information,  
and something similar is also true about ligatures. Fine. That still  
leaves Daggett's renaming idea as a quick means to the foundries'  
stated goal of dissuading casual or accidental license abuse, without  
requiring anything new of the UA (at least not for Safari 4, Firefox  
3.1, and some version of Opera—and IE can continue to use EOT).