RE: [css3-fonts] @font-face matching and font-style descriptor

> No, it's a *spec* problem because there's no font to fallback to in
> the case of Japanese if fallback is defined this way.  

I am not sure I understand what do you mean by "this way". 

> I'm perfectly
> aware that Japanese doesn't have an italic tradition.  But users in
> Japan now expect that Japanese text in <em> tags to be obliqued, so
> disabling synthetic italics is problematic.

> Not sure what homework I need to do. ;)

You may have not realized that, but text above is your homework made. You look at various aspects of Japanese typography to decide how you want your site should behave:

  - If you do not want italics on your site because this is not part of typographic tradition of particular language, change font-style:italic style for <em> tag to something appropriate. 
  - If you think site will use italic because modern users are used to it and expect this behavior, do nothing and use "Western" stylesheets. 
  - If you decide that it should be true italics, find italic font (if it exists) and use it. You can use @font-face to make this explicit.
  - If this is part of typography for this language, most probably you will have true italic font and you will use it. If your regular font is fixed and family has not italic, you can use @font-face to explicitly specify italic match.
  - You can make stylesheet language-dependent to make it work on multi-language site. 
  - Accidental fallback that fell through cracks of you stylesheet may always happen,

You make your choice and implement it. Is there real design decision that existing spec does not allow me to implement? "I do not want to see faux italic on my site" is not a decision made, it is complaint with no design solution proposed and so there is nothing to implement.

Thanks,
Sergey

Received on Thursday, 16 September 2010 17:42:23 UTC