Re: [css3-fonts] Clarification on Font Descriptors

On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 3:07 PM, divya manian <divya.manian@gmail.com> wrote:
> In description of application of synthetic styling on fonts specified
> in @font-face rule, the spec states:
>
> "User agents that implement synthetic bolding and obliqueing must only
> apply synthetic styling in cases where the font descriptors imply this
> is needed, rather than based on the style attributes implied by the
> font data."
>
> I understand that this implies that UAs should reject the data that
> fonts themselves provide to their boldness/obliqueness instead use
> font descriptors to guide them in this. But from what I know, none of
> the browsers apply synthetic styling even when font-weight: bold; is
> set on @font-face rule and the selector uses a normal font-weight. See
> example [1]
>
> So, what does this sentence mean? Does any browser do synthetic
> styling based on font-descriptors? I only know they do so based on
> font-weight/font-style properties that are used where the fonts
> themselves are referenced.

You got this backwards.

What it means is that if you have a @font-face declaring a bold face,
UAs *must* use that face instead of doing synthetic bolding.  They're
only allowed to synthesize bolding when there is no @font-face
declaring a "font-weight:bold" for that font.

The descriptors describe the qualities of the face being defined.

~TJ

Received on Sunday, 29 January 2012 17:42:00 UTC