Microsoft Typography | Web... | Recommended... | Simple font delivery...
		Simple font delivery considered harmful Why auto download and installation of fonts is not as simple as it sounds Here's a question that we seem to get asked every now and then. The answer is a little bit too involved for inclusion in our FAQ so we've decided to answer it here. Anyway here's the question; I'm using CSS / FONT FACE to specify some fonts that I've designed. I've posted the fonts on my home-page for people to download, but only a small percentage of site visitors go to the trouble of downloading them. I also get several e-mails each day from people having trouble installing them. What I want is an ActiveX TM control / plug-in / utility that will allow me to include a button that says 'Click here to download and auto install the fonts'. So what about it? You would have thought that this would be easy, and pretty uncomplicated. However, there are some very real problems and issues associated with the online delivery of fonts with a Web page or site. Microsoft, Adobe and others have been working on solving these problems for some time. Unfortunately the simple font delivery outlined in the question will not get the job done. Here are a few of the reasons why. Fonts are not .GIFs, people may well object to having their font folders stuffed up with your fonts. So any simple utility, helper app or plug-in must be able to install and deinstall fonts from the cache as needed. Also, unlike simple bitmaps, fonts are computer programs so bad ones can contain bugs that could crash your computer. Fonts are big. 100KB isn't uncommon for a font, and you might need the regular, the bold and the italic plus a couple of headline fonts. These could weigh in at over 500KB. Microsoft, Adobe and others are working on methods of compressing / subsetting fonts to reduce the download time. Windows® fonts don't work on Macs. You'll need to provide your fonts in a range of formats. Fonts are intellectual property. Unless you created the fonts from scratch yourself, you can't be sure that the 'freeware' fonts you're distributing aren't based on someone else's work. They could belong to someone, who might not take kindly to you distributing their software across the Web for free. this page was last updated 30 June 1997 © 1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of use. comments to the MST group: how to contact us
	Microsoft Typography | Web... | Recommended... | Simple font delivery...