dW

Font Embedding Revisited

six Responses (now closed)

In a post a few weeks ago I mentioned that both Kestrel and Firefox 3 supported font embedding. It appears I was incorrect as in my tests Kestrel and Firefox 3 were pulling the typeface from my system instead of the embedded one. My stupid mistake.

However, this brings up something interesting because Håkon Wium Lie stated that it was time for other browsers to implement font embedding. Apple did. What about Opera? Anyone know if there are plans to implement this before Kestrel goes final?

Opera Mnemonic

one Response (now closed)

There are few computer programs out there that inspires a following like Opera does. Opera’s followers are like the Star Trek and Star Wars fanatics of old. I would consider myself an Opera Fanatic. That might be an understatement in my case.

Opera is a program you could use for years and yet learn something new to do with it from time to time. Just recently I read a log post by Øyvind in which he outlines how to use Opera’s custom search function to navigate websites, creating a custom search in which you can type my EspenAO in the address input box and it’d bring you to Espen’s My Opera page by using the My Opera username as a search term. I’ve been using Opera’s custom search feature before there was a way to do it using the GUI where I had to manually edit the search.ini file with my custom searches. I never even considered using Opera’s search feature like that. That’s what makes Opera great in my opinion. I immediately showed my sister how to use that same method to navigate through Myspace (converting her to My Opera is a WIP).

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with Jeff where we were discussing things similar to this. The conversation led to us attempting to figure out just when we started using Opera. We knew it was a good while back and having logs of our conversations back then would be next to impossible. The oldest logs I have date to the day before Christmas of 2004, dating long before I used a Mac (I converted the logs). Luckily Jeff is a packrat and had logs from way back. I think he found the exact point in which I decided to use Opera (even when it’s not obvious based upon the conversation) five years ago TODAY:

Khadgar:

oddly though with my new programming the site displays best in Opera 7.

MTKnight:

Is that so? Hmm. :)

MTKnight:

Is it in /temp/?

Khadgar:

no on my hd.

MTKnight:

Ah, no PHP yet?

Khadgar:

nope

MTKnight:

What’s it look like?

Khadgar:

a website

* MTKnight laughs.

I believe it was at that point I decided to use Opera. I remember that it took a bit getting used to as I was used to opening a new window and just typing the address there. I had to break that habit and return to the idea that the web browser was that red O, not the OS itself. I remember meaning to click on Opera quite a lot but instead falling to my habit. I broke many habits to improve my productivity, recently breaking a habit of having multiple search inputs in my personal bar to using the address input box exclusively for searches.

Since I started using it I’ve gotten into the habit of annoying persuading people to use Opera. I didn’t have to do any persuading to convert my friends to use it. Many of them saw me blazing away on it and decided to try it for themselves. It didn’t take long to convert my brother, either. He wanted to reduce viruses on his Windows machine he used for work, so I suggested Opera. That computer took a shit, so when he replaced it with an iMac Opera went with him. Five years ago I started using Opera, and it took me about four to convince my sister to use it. While she was doing artwork on my father’s old Mac Mini she started using for such after he died she’d run into situations where her memory would run out. Firefox and Safari eat too much memory to be used in that situation, but Opera doesn’t. That’s how she started using it. I walked into her shop one day and was startled to see her using Opera. I’ve showed her tips and tricks to using Opera more productively; she’s like I am, wondering what she ever did without it. She’s since then converted many of her friends to using Opera, mostly by just showing off Speed Dial. She’s now wondering when her big box of Opera pens are coming in after forcing me into giving her the ones I won by drawing Operaman and Speed Dial. I much prefer my mechanical pencil anyway.

Opera’s just one of the best programs out there, and I’d like to say thank you to all of the developers of this great program. I really don’t know what I’d do without Opera.

Font Embedding for the Web

Responses Closed

EDIT: It’s come to my attention that it appears that I was incorrect in my assessment that Kestrel and Firefox 3 both supported font embedding. Apparently the browsers were picking up the typeface that I had installed on my machine rather than one I was embedding.

In June of 2006 Håkon Wium Lie, everybody’s favorite CTO, wrote an article for CNET entitled “Microsoft’s forgotten monopoly” where he calls on browser developers to start adding support for font embedding. A year and a half ago this sparked debate among typophiles whether it was a good or a bad idea. Safari has since answered the call and added support for it in Safari 3. Opera, with Kestrel, has support for it. Firefox 3 will have support for it as well it appears by using my own tests. Kestrel’s embedding appears to be a bit buggy however, forcing usage of a heaver font weight on embedded typefaces on large point sizes.

Like with everything else there are supporters and non-supporters of this. Most of the non-supporters argue that many people without a single lick of design skills will begin to use typefaces that are substandard. They make a very good point here. A quick visit to any free font website will turn up thousands of typefaces that were created without the care many type designers take when creating their commercial fonts. A golden rule in this matter is that if the font is a free font (not pirated) and doesn’t have Ray Larabie as the creator it’s crap. There are exceptions to this rule, however. There are some websites today that do use typefaces that aren’t of the standard web fonts (Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman, etc.) but aren’t embedded fonts. They instead specify the typefaces in their CSS font-family properties. If you have the typefaces specified you get to view the website with those typefaces. This for people who do have a wide collection of typefaces can be abused as much as those. Take Joe Clark’s blog for example. Anyone with the Zapfino typeface (any Mac user will have it by default) will have their eyes bleeding upon visiting that website. He is one of the world’s leaders in web accessibility yet he uses a typeface which is difficult to read even at moderate point sizes. I use Zapfino in my Garden of Dreams design for My Opera, but the font is quite large. My argument here is that even people with knowledge about typefaces will abuse them.

Why would abuse be a problem in the first place? Aren’t color and animated gifs abused already on places such as MySpace? Why are designers as a whole afraid of this? A good web designer has a job because he/she can organize and design content that is more pleasurable, so if people without a creative lobe in their brain wants to use hideous fonts let them. The gap between ugly design and beautiful, effective design will be larger.

The second problem the non-supporters bring up concerns copyright law and the embedding flag within font files themselves. Most people do not know the technology behing font files, but it’s more complicated than most people think. Typography is a very difficult field to belong to, and a lot of the minute details of creating a typeface isn’t common knowledge. That’s why for the most part commercial typefaces are superior to free ones as the people making them are trying to make a living at what they’re good at. There are exceptions just like with quality free fonts. Some argue that copyright law prohibits embedding of any typeface, but that’s incorrect. Fonts are prohibited from being embedded ONLY when the embedding flag is turned to false on its font file. If it is true then it can be embedded wherever you so please it to be as long as you, the person embedding the typeface, have paid for it. Anyone who has to distribute PDF files might run into typefaces that cannot be embedded. The same would apply for the web. There are some typefaces out there that are of quality and do allow embedding, but they are few and far between. That’s another problem the non-supporters bring up.

Not too long ago many people wrote open letters to Adobe requesting that they open a small list of their favorite typefaces to the web. With each person’s open letter there was a different set of typefaces. I found this to be a waste of time because many of the typefaces they were requesting Adobe had no rights to except to distribute them. Some such as Warnock Pro were designed and distributed by Adobe, but the vast majority of them weren’t. Even if Adobe owned all of the typefaces opening those fonts to the web would cause them to lose revenue from the sale of those typefaces. I mentioned that font embedding probably would be a better solution. After I talked sense I had my intelligence questioned by Andrei Herasimchuk. I’m not a very egotistical man, but I think a “I told you so” is in order here. It’s been two years and Adobe’s done nothing and most likely won’t. What makes it worse is that many of those requested typefaces aren’t even designed to work well on the screen, many of them not even having a screen variant. The vast majority could be used at best for headers.

The third problem is pirating and theft. Unfortunately there is very little that can be done to keep someone from downloading typefaces that are embedded within a CSS document. People with knowledge and access to their server’s filesystem can adjust permissions on the font files to limit usage of the typefaces. That approach would keep the vast majority of people from downloading the font, but people with knowledge of how to curcumvent the protection could still get the files if they wanted to. Microsoft tried to solve this problem by working with Monotype to create the Embedded OpenType format (or EOT for short). The format was essentially a subsetted digital rights managed font format. Using Microsoft’s tool you could specify what websites the typeface would only work on. I’m unsure why this didn’t catch on. Microsoft probably didn’t open the EOT format to the rest of the browsers and it died as a user-unfriendly proprietary Microsoft technology. Typefaces are the most pirated piece of software on the planet, and allowing for embedding for all of these typefaces would cause a big problem but not a problem that doesn’t already exist. A simple torrent search would turn up thousands of commercial typefaces and typeface collections. Fonts are easily downloadable already. That doesn’t mean a format doesn’t need to be created for usage when embedding typefaces. Adobe, a type foundry itself, has created a font obfuscator tool for usage in their Mars format, a method for embedding PDF in XML. There’s no reason why that specification couldn’t be adapted into a standard for the web. In fact the first comment in that linked log post asks the same question.

I personally think Opera, Safari, and Mozilla are is taking the right approach to this, at least the right approach as long as there isn’t a common concensus as how to obfuscate fonts for embedding on the web.