Font embedding on the Web
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Font embedding on the Web refers to the ability to embed fonts into web pages. This allows for more flexibility when deciding about what font to use, and is especially useful for web pages that use foreign characters that are not widely supported. However, embedding font necessarily increases the time a web site takes to load, and it is controversial because it can potentially allow copyrighted fonts to be freely proliferated through the web.
Font embedding is not widely used on the web.
Contents |
[edit] TrueDoc
Bitstream developed TrueDoc, the first standard for embedding fonts. TrueDoc was natively supported in Netscape Navigator 4, but was discontinued in Netscape Navigator 6 and Mozilla because Netscape could not release Bitstream's source code. A WebFont Player plugin was available for Internet Explorer, but the technology had to compete against Microsoft's Embedded Open Type fonts natively supported by Internet Explorer 4 and up (Windows versions only).
[edit] Embedded Open Type
Internet Explorer 4 and above have supported font embedding through the proprietary Embedded Open Type standard. EOT fonts are embedded with the @font-face CSS rule. They use digital rights management techniques to help prevent fonts from being copied and used without a license.
[edit] TrueType
The CSS2 specification adopted Microsoft's @font-face rule as the standard method for embedding fonts. However, Safari is the only browser other than Internet Explorer that supports @font-face, and it supports TrueType fonts instead of EOT fonts.
