tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191291.post7781629919921354856..comments2024-02-05T22:23:32.443-08:00Comments on Coding In Paradise: The Two Central Questions Confronting EOT Web FontsBrad Neuberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03274020042497854648noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191291.post-29317351084207449572009-03-17T13:06:00.000-07:002009-03-17T13:06:00.000-07:00There is an alternative that rarely gets any press...There is an alternative that rarely gets any press - SVG Glyphs in an html context. This is currently supported by both Opera 10 and Safari 4 (proof: http://devfiles.myopera.com/articles/593/SVGfonts_in_HTML.html ).<BR/><BR/>I think there are the best way, and they even address some unmentioned concerns from your post.<BR/><BR/>1. EOT fonts have some advantages - DRM isn't one of them. They are supported by the 10,000 pound gorilla - that's huge. They are also a very small file format, subsetted and compressed. SVG Glyph support can address these concerns as well.<BR/><BR/>2. It isn't true that other forms of content are not protected at all (accept maybe text). They tend to be very heavily compressed versions made from professional source material - eg they are not suitable for re-use. Here again, both EOT and SVG Glyph fonts can provide a similar barriers to re-use since they are effectively the same thing, a stripped down version of the original content. PDFs and SWFs (Flash) have been doing that for ages.<BR/><BR/>On an interesting side note, the most recent version of Flash (version 10) now supports CFF font embedding (they call it DefineFont4), which if you can remember back to the Illustrator 7 days, used to be the preferred format for embedded fonts in SVG (it used to actually output a .cff file). :-)<BR/><BR/>Also, typeface designers tend to be old, and cranky. They are not ever going to be happy with any of the embedded technology, but I think it's time to give them something a bit less scary than let's embed .ttf or .otf files. It's an easier sell if the fonts linked by HTML are a type of file that cannot be easily taken and installed in the system font folder. EOT and SVG fonts provide that protection at least (flimzy as we techies know that protection is - at the very least, it takes a knowledgeable person to convert those fonts - just like flash and pdf embedded fonts).CaptainNhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02430262194820007830noreply@blogger.com