Re: [css3-fonts] font descriptor default values

Thomas Phinney wrote:
> Font developers MUST split up any family greater than four members
> (occupying the usual roles, regular, italic, bold, bold italic), at
> least as far as Windows GDI apps are concerned. Else their fonts won't
> work properly in most Windows applications.
>
> In OpenType and TrueType, there are a variety of name fields
> available, and font developers can express the "real" family grouping
> just fine alongside the GDI-friendly one. But that's not what gets
> shown to GDI apps, including browsers AFAIK. Mac OS doesn't have these
> restrictions, but as long as any major OS API does, there's an issue.
>   
GDI do support using the correct font family names for fonts. However, 
applications often won't support such fonts because of how they select 
fonts (e.g. will only consider a font to be bold or non-bold, without 
any distinction on exactly how bold or light the font should be). There 
are other parts of Windows, e.g. USER, that is/were more limiting 
though. Consequently, font vendors break the windows family name of big 
families in order for them to be functional in all applications. Still, 
there are room to get the font selection/matching correct with GDI on 
Windows for CSS. It's not trivial though, and many apps won't bother.
> Cheers,
>
> T
>
>   
Regards,
Em2 Solutions AB
Michael Jansson

Received on Wednesday, 4 March 2009 08:29:08 UTC