Tom Livingston wrote:
I am being asked for "ammunition" against pushing custom font families to visitors of a Web site. Anyone have any references on this? WEFT, eot, etc.
Why are you already against it, if you don't already have such ammunition? Normally, it's a good idea to understand an issue as much as possible before you take sides.
Conceptually, providing downloadable fonts is not bad idea. There are many benefits for design and typography that can make it quite useful, when used properly. However, like any technology, it has its limitations and can be abused.
Presently, the major limitation is that browser support is very limited. CSS2 @font-face font desciptors are only somewhat implemented by IE, using downloadable fonts in EOT files. No other browser supports it, and the @font-face features have since been dropped from CSS 2.1 and work is being done by the CSSWG to replace it with something better in CSS3.
The major problems with custom fonts stem from its ability to be abused. It's very important to not use downloadable fonts as a mechanism to render custom glyphs. e.g. Proving a downloadable font with glyphs, much like those found in the Wingdings font families, which contain pictures in place of ordinary characters. The problem with doing that is that only visual users will see the custom glyphs, whereas screen readers, search engines and browsers that don't support downloadable fonts get meaningless text.
See, for example, these old demos provided by Microsoft, which are good examples of what not to do with downloadable fonts.
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/embedding/demos/3/demo3.htm http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/embedding/demos/3/demo3b.htm In such cases, images are much more appropriate. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
