Thanks to Mozilla, Web Gets Less Ugly, Good Type Gets Machine Readable
Recently, a consortium of type designers and web designers have gathered around a new font format specification called Web Open Font Format (WOFF). The format would allow more typefaces to appear across the web and to be readable by both humans and search engines.
With support from Mozilla announced with the release of Firefox 3.6, and with the advocacy of leading type foundries such as Linotype, Emigre, and Hoefler & Frere-Jones, the question of web fonts might be satisfactorily resolved in the near future.
For some time, sIFR has been the go-to technology for web designers attempting to expand the Internet's typographical vocabulary without sacrificing machine readability. However, adoption and use have been limited, and the roster of fully functional online fonts has remained a static and brief cast of players.
In a blog post, Mozilla contributor John Daggett wrote, "The WOFF format originated from a collabaration between the font designers Erik van Blokland and Tal Leming with help from Mozilla's Jonathan Kew. Each had proposed their own format and WOFF represents a melding of these different proposals. The format itself is intended to be a simple repackaging of OpenType or TrueType font data, it doesn't introduce any new behavior, alter the @font-face linking mechanism or affect the way fonts are rendered. Many font vendors have expressed support for this new format so the hope is this will open up a wider range of font options for web designers."
Of course, Firefox 3.6 will be the first browser to support the new format, so designers will need to include @font-face rules for other browsers, at least for the time being. Not surprisingly, creating such rules for Internet Explorer is more complicated than for other browsers, as IE only plays nicely with Embedded Open Type faces and a limited set of @font-face rule descriptors.
Internet Explorer wonkiness aside, WOFF is a widely supported and relatively prominent step in the right direction, and we hope more browser versions will support the format. It's about time for web pages to lose their homogeneity, for designers to gain more tools for brand and personal expression, for search engines to read more fonts, and for users to have richer browsing experiences.
Interested web developers and designers should also check out woffTools, a Python package for examining and manipulating WOFF files. This package also contains a set of command line tools for verifying and examining the files.
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
The WOFF format originated from a collaboration between the font designers Erik van Blokland and Tal Leming with help from Mozilla’s Jonathan Kew. Each had proposed their own format and WOFF represents a melding of these different proposals. The format itself is intended to be a simple repackaging of OpenType or TrueType font data, it doesn’t introduce any new behavior. Many font vendors have expressed support for this new format so the hope is this will open up a wider range of font options for web designers. This is why I am not surprised why people are having their payday loans to purchased this. "WOFF combines the work of Leming and Blokland had done on embedding a variety of useful font metadata with the font resource compression that Kew had developed. The end result is a format that includes optimized compression that reduces the download time needed to load font resources while incorporating information about the font's origin and licensing. The format doesn't include any encryption or DRM, so it should be universally accepted by browser vendors—this should also qualify it for adoption by the W3C."
Word on the Tweet is that Microsoft are looking seriously at WOFF support in IE9: @TypeKit. Whether it amounts to anything remains to be proven though.
Posted by: drumnet.myopenid.com
|
November 3, 2009 12:16 AM
Drumnet - now THAT is an interesting rumor/trumor! I would love to see MSFT take a leading stance on web typography. It seems like a simple enough thing to support and implement, and if they could take a proactive approach, it might do them some good in the design community. Let's face it: As much as I am an advocate for Microsoft The Brand (as an old school MSFT user/networky person), I think the IE browser has a long way to go in terms of speed, compliance, usability, simplicity, features, etc. - all the things that make browsers fun to develop and design for.
I believe this is really important. Typography is oh so important. We're humans! Fonts that our easy on our eyes make reading fun, pleasant, and enjoyable. When you've got sites with so many varying typefaces, sizes, letter spacings, word spacings, etc... There is no natural flow to it. Its not like reading a book its like reading insanity!
Jolie - have you actually read Sasha's comment? Is there anything about it that strikes you as a bit suspicious?