[css3-font] unquoted font family names with whitespace

"To avoid mistakes in escaping, it is recommended to quote font family  
names that contain white space, digits, or punctuation characters other  
than hyphens:"

http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-fonts/#propdef-font-family
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/fonts.html#font-family-prop

What mistake in escaping can one do when a font family name contains  
whitespace? Whitespace doesn't need escaping (unless a font has something  
funny like a tab character or two subsequent spaces, but such fonts don't  
exist). Unquoted font family names with spaces work fine. Don't recommend  
quoting them.

Unescaped unquoted font family names that start with a digit or contain  
punctuation characters other than hyphen will break *even if there is no  
whitespace*.

Suggested wording:

To avoid mistakes in escaping, it is recommended to quote font family  
names that contain words that start with digits or contains punctuation  
characters other than hyphens:

body { font-family: "Amalgamate O (outlined)", serif }

<BODY STYLE="font-family: '21st Century', fantasy">

-- 
Simon Pieters
Opera Software

Received on Wednesday, 14 March 2012 06:53:18 UTC