Question On Fonts

[442GlenwoodAvenue]

I was playing around with different fonts on Front Page. A queston occurred to me . .

 

If I use a rather obscure font on my website that isn't installed on the computer of the person viewing the website, will they see that font - or will it default to something else?

 

442

[DarqFlare]

It will default to Times New Roman (Windows) I believe, if they don't have it.

[borfast]

It will default to Times New Roman or whatever your site visitors configure their browser to use.

 

Why not provide a link for your visitors to download the font, along with instructions on how to install it?

 

Also, this is not a specific FrontPage issue. The font you use on your webpage is independent of the program you use to create it.

 

By the way, nice avatar

 

 

PS - moved for better otganization.

Edited March 21, 2004 by TCH-Raul

[hindixp]

Hi,

If you wish to enrich your text and people should view it in your desired font you can Embedd the font into your web page using

MS WEFT

 

Its a free tool which would help you create font objects which would load required font data into visitors browser when they visit it.

WEFT Works well with Internet explorer 5+.

No Support for Netscape, Infact more than 75% of users today have I.E. so Netscape can be compromised on this.

 

Tool is quite easy to use.

Try it out at Microsoft WEFT users community

 

See ya,

Manu

[tattoovampire]

Hi,

  If you wish to enrich your text and people should view it in your desired font you can Embedd the font into your web page using

MS WEFT

 

Its a free tool which would help you create font objects which would load required font data into visitors browser when they visit it.

WEFT Works well with Internet explorer 5+.

No Support for Netscape, Infact more than 75% of users today have I.E. so Netscape can be compromised on this.

 

Tool is quite easy to use.

Try it out at Microsoft WEFT users community

 

See ya,

Manu

Any tool that will work only with IE sucks, in my opinion.

[schussat]

A gentler way to keep some font control if your users don't have a particular font installed is to specify several specific options. Your stylesheet might do this:

>p, blockquote, li, h3
{
font-family: Verdana, "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica;
...
}

Verdana gets used first, then on down the line.

[TCH-Rob]

I agree with schussat, using a font family may be your best bet. Unfortunately if it is a nonstandard font you are going to lose a few users on it. I being one of the 25% that dont use IE wouldnt get to see them. Not cause I am anti MS, UNIX doesnt run IE well.

[borfast]

Manu, you had mentioned that WEFT thing in another post and IMHO, just like tattoovampire said, any tool that produces IE-only code is really lame.

 

You say that "more than 75% of users today have I.E. so Netscape can be compromised on this"... I can't tell you how much this kind of mentality irritates me.

 

First of all, why do you say 75% of web users use IE? For example, in one of my sites, IE counts only for 72% of all visits. In another, it's only responsible for 63% of the traffic.

 

Second, even if IE would count for 80%, 85% or even 90% of your visitors, why would you simply ignore the other visitors who prefer to use a browser instead of a toy?

Edited March 21, 2004 by TCH-Raul

[LisaJill]

I agree with Raul on this. Even though I only run a personal site I do extensive cross browser testing, including using browser cam, to ensure that anyone that wants to visit my site can see it. I do draw lines at version 4 browsers, but - I have 0% visitors from those according to AWStats.

 

I would think embedding fonts would slow down website loading speeds, although I have not tested it.

 

As a business decision, deciding to ignore a small portion of your customrs can lead to bigger catastrophes. Word of mouth is one of the best advertising tools. Some of the people using the better tools (better than IE, not difficult!) may be the most able to bring more customers.

 

Especially if you work in a computer oriented field.

 

Believe me, I would love to use specialized fonts on my sites and ensure everyone can see them. That level of style control would be thrilling to me - but with WEFT I'd never see it, I use firefox. 40% of my statistics show non ie based browsers. I simply could not institute that technology (which is old and not supported even by IE anymore, I believe, though I am not sure) in good faith.

[442GlenwoodAvenue]

Thanks everyone for the info. I was out of town for a while.

[hindixp]

>IE-only code is really lame  

 

Thats true a good web-developer won't ignore Compatibility to any of browsers available today.

 

I was able to say so cause Regional Language Developers sometime have to make compromises with tecnological limitations.

 

Like in my case I Publish content in Hindi(official Language of India) and i've been supporting fonts at back end for years and that has crossed 1,10,000 pages on the web.

 

Stating 75% of traffic through I.E. is cause all these pages become available in said language without the need to download the fonts manually, when they are visited with I.E.

 

Slowing down could occur on slow servers but if you are with TCH this issue is not of much botheration.

 

There are Advanced Tools available for extending support of Embedded fonts on All Available Browser but that can be a bit expensive.

Its called Glyphgate

 

See ya,

manu

[kaseytraeger]

I'm not sure the extent to which you want to use this fancier font, but if it's for something along the lines of a page header or subtitle, I would think you could create your own custom headers in the font of your choice using your favorite graphics editing software.

 

If, however, you want the text of the entire web page in that special font, then you can't use this option unless you want to make your entire page one big graphic ... yikes!!!! Can you say "long download times"?

 

If you are interested in using special "fonticized" graphics as headers or titles, you can do a search in your favorite search engine for the Fahrner Image Replacement technique (a.k.a., FIR). A good web site for learning about this technique is Stop Design. Be aware, however, that there are some objections to this method because people with disabilities (I'm thinking specifically of blind people who use web page readers) won't even know that the header exists. You'll have to make that decision for yourself. If your web site is just for friends and family, and you know none of them are blind, then accessibility issues such as this may not be pertinent to your web site. If, however, you're operating a small business or a web site that is of interest to people outside your immediate friend/family base, then this may be an important consideration for you.