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Microsoft Typography | ...on the Web | ...embedding | Microsoft WEFT 3
WEFT 3 release notes


Troubleshooting and testing


Testing your pages

There are three main ways to test that the WEFT process has been completed correctly. The first and most obvious technique is to temporarily uninstall the fonts that were embedded or test the pages on a machine that never had them installed in the first place.

The second technique involves renaming references to the embedded font to a 'made up' font name.


Of course it works - I made it up myself

Load a modified Web page into your favorite text editor. Change 'real installed font' references to 'myfont'. An example is shown below.

A page, as modified by WEFT. 

<HTML>
  <HEAD>
    <TITLE>Test Page</TITLE>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
 <!-- /* $WEFT -- Created by: () on 1/1/2001 -- */
  @font-face {
    font-family: Arial;
    font-style:  normal;
    font-weight: normal;
    src: url(ARIAL0.eot); }
 -->
</STYLE>
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
    <FONT FACE=Arial SIZE=5> a b c d e f g </FONT>
  </BODY>
</HTML>

References to 'Arial' changed to 'myfont'. 

<HTML>
  <HEAD>
    <TITLE>Test Page</TITLE>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
 <!-- /* $WEFT -- Created by: () on 1/1/2001 -- */
  @font-face {
    font-family: myfont;
    font-style:  normal;
    font-weight: normal;
    src: url(ARIAL0.eot); }
 -->
</STYLE>
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
    <FONT FACE=myfont SIZE=5> a b c d e f g </FONT>
  </BODY>
</HTML>

Upload the newly modified Web page to your server. Start Internet Explorer, enter the page location into the address field and hit 'Return'. If everything worked Internet Explorer will download the page and font object.

The third technique is to edit your Web page content to include a character known to be in the real font that isn't part of the embedded font subset. If the character appears when you view the page you know that the installed font is being used. If it is replaced with a box (or other missing glyph character) then the embedded font is being used.


'Allowed roots', also known as 'URL binding'.

When Internet Explorer downloads the font object it looks at the list of allowed roots that you entered using the 'Mirror sites...' option accessed from the 'Create font objects' screen.

screen capture

Internet Explorer will then confirm that one of the allowed roots in the font object file matches the first part of the address Internet Explorer used to access the page. In the example shown below there is a successful match with one of the allowed roots in the EOT. We've highlighted the matching allowed root in green.

screen capture

If there is a match Internet Explorer will temporarily and privately install the font embedded in the font object and use it to display the contents of the test page. If none of the allowed roots in the font object match the address used to access the page then text will be displayed in a fallback font.


What might go wrong

Incorrect allowed roots

The most common problems relate to incorrect allowed roots. For example you may have included http://www.your_web_server.com/ as the only allowed root in your eot, but tried to access your page via http://your_web_server.com/. The missing 'www' is important.

You may have included http://www.your_web_server.com/fonts/ as the only allowed root in your eot, but tried to access your page via http://www.your_web_server.com/pages/. Here the allowed root doesn't match the page address. You should recreate the eot's using http://www.your_web_server.com/pages/ or just http://www.your_web_server.com/ as allowed roots.

Another common mistake is trying to access a page via a numeric address but neglecting to include it as an allowed root. For example if you want to access a page via http://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn/, this should be included as an allowed root.


Server blocking of font objects

This should be considered if you have confirmed that the allowed roots in your font objects match exactly the location of your test page and your page continues to fail.

Some Web servers, especially free web hosting servers, do not recognize the .eot extension. Try typing the complete URL address of your font object into Internet Explorer, http://www.your_web_server.com/arial0.eot. The error returned by the server should indicate the nature of the problem.



this page was last updated 26 February 2001
© 2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Legal Notices.
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WEFT 3 release notes
Microsoft Typography | ...on the Web | ...embedding | Microsoft WEFT 3