Font Embedding on the Web

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Damian — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:21:15 GMT

I know this is a nitpick, but like bad code it's one of those things that just bugs me XD

1400 x 900 is not a standard resolution, it would lead to the not so common 14:9 aspect ratio (though not entirely unheard of). I think you mean 1440 x 900, giving the ever so lovely 16:10 aspect ratio.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Bill Hill — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:50:17 GMT

You're right, Damien. 1440 x 900 is the actual screen resolution for which I was authoring.

But I deliberately budgeted so I could lose some pixels to the non-functioning scroll bar which still appears on the right, and the status bar which still apears on the bottom. I built the pages smaller so I wouldn't end up still triggering scrolling in FullScreen mode.

If I maximize Internet Explorer on my 1440 x 900 screen, but leave menus etc in place, I get a vertical scroll bar which is active.

When I hit F11 the menus, toolbars etc go away but the scrollbar stays in place, even though there's no "elevator" in the shaft and it doesn't do anything. F11 also doesn't make the status bar at the bottom go away.

I don't understand why these couldn't go away as well, and will follow up on this. Maybe there's a good reason. But in the meantime I was being pragmatic in designing my pages smaller because FullScreen still doesn't mean "Your content gets all the screen real estate"...

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Peter Gasston — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:00:37 GMT

Like everything else about IE, it would have been great if all this had been done years ago; that way we could be using this technology now.

As it is, I can't use WEFT because I don't use Windows; and I can't use Ascender's tool because it hasn't been released yet, and appears as if it will only be for fonts purchased from Ascender when it arrives.

So in the meantime I'll use the browser(s) which have an open implementation, with correctly-licensed fonts.

DRM, no thanks (even if it's broken already)

kL — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:00:40 GMT

Please, don't push this crappy format. XORing of files is not a legal solution.

We can already break law/leech bandwidth by (hot)linking copyrighted images, copyrighted MP3s, etc. Fonts are no different and DRM won't help here a bit.

Just make sure you send Referer header when you request font files.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Brianary — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:07:52 GMT

This idea is ten years old, and it was a failure then.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Blaise Kal — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:29:18 GMT

Very interesting story.

However, please support .ttf embedding, since that's something ALL OTHER BROWSERS have implemented or are currently implementing.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Ted — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:09:10 GMT

@kL: "XORing of files is not a legal solution."

Uh, I don't think you understand either the technology, or the law. Perhaps you should study before posting.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Tom — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:11:38 GMT

Blaise appears to be unaware that Truetype is on its way out. OpenType is the future, largely because the font foundries are migrating their old Type 1 (i.e. professional) fontbase to it rather than to TrueType.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Gyrobo — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:26:14 GMT

So what you're saying is that you're trying to turn EOT into the OOXML of web fonts.

Will IE8 support @font-face as described by the CSS3 Web Fonts module, including the format() identifier as well as OpenType/TrueType support?

Acid3 DOES require a TrueType font to be downloaded, and the other browser vendors all seem to be heading in the TrueType direction. Why delay the inevitable? Allow TrueType into your hearts!

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Andrew Stephens — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:31:17 GMT

I have never really understood the legal problems with downloading fonts. I don't have a license to use any material from the movie Hancock, but my browser displays the promotional stills from IMDB just fine.

I realise that making a font is a time consuming activity worthy of compensation, but "protecting" fonts in a non-standard format seems counterproductive. Anyone who wants to steal the font is going to do so anyway, and it is a pain for legitimate users. Public web sites using unauthorised fonts are going to be spotted 30 seconds after they go live, so its not like enforcement is even going to be that much of a problem.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Bill Hill — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:51:39 GMT

Andrew Stephens wrote:

"Public web sites using unauthorised fonts are going to be spotted 30 seconds after they go live, so its not like enforcement is even going to be that much of a problem."

No, it should be no more of a problem than enforcing unauthorized downloads of music or movies...

Is the font industry really expected to take comfort from that?

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Damian — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 06:18:48 GMT

Thanks for the reply Bill :)

I hate to say this, but my main browser is Firefox 3 and that's what I was viewing your site with. I have no such issues with full screen in that browser, so maybe you can bug someone who would know what do do in the IE team to fix it (get it, bug them... *sigh*) .

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Andrew Stephens — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 06:20:29 GMT

Bill Hill,

Nothing in IE prevents people from downloading fonts, and there are already plenty of places to download unauthorised copies of any font to care to mention. What I was trying to say is that no site is going to <b>embed</b> a font that it is not licensed to use - they will get jumped on immediately in the same way that you or I would get jumped on if we used My Humps as background music on our blogs.

The pirate sites will continue to offer the ttf files or whatever for download, nothing in Mircosoft's spec prevents that. This "feature" just prevents legitimate sites from easily using custom fonts by embedding them in the standard way.

Safari on the Mac (but not Windows) supports OpenType font embedded via style sheets. I have played around with it and it looks cool but adds little in the way of functionality. My guess is that most sites won't bother with it anyway.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Andrew Stephens — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 06:30:43 GMT

Perhaps I should add that I am not really against the EOT standard. I guess it has its place, but Microsoft should really support OpenType fonts as well, since it doesn't really make pirating fonts any easier.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

LOL — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:07:07 GMT

1440x900... mwahahaha, look at your crappy blog with IE8 in a lower resolution and cry.

It will be cut everywhere, horizontal and vertical scrollbars, and when you use the scrollbars, be ready to a choke, you will scroll empty content.

This "technology" is crap as many others you trying to force. Stop pretending you innovate when in reality your are trying to cut down the web.

Just give up on IE new crap you want to impose and start looking at acid3 test first.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Chris Hunt — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:38:44 GMT

Interesting that the first article on your blog is about how designers need to abandon print habits, and adapt to the viewer's screen size - but the blog uses a very "printy" snaking column layout, and is fixed to 1400 pixels wide!

Ignoring the predictable comes-from-Microsoft-so-it-must-be-evil comments, I welcome this announcement. Too long have we had to work with a handful of "web fonts", if this is the key to adding more to that list, it's gotta be a good thing.

But hey, let a thousand flowers bloom. If IE can support OpenType, and FF/Opera/etc. can support EOT, we'll have the best of both worlds. Let's try to move forward instead of fighting over "my technology is better than your technology..."

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Chris Hester — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:09:11 GMT

Brianary wrote "This idea is ten years old, and it was a failure then." If you read Bill's post he says "But because Netscape at that time adopted another standard, and we kept EOT proprietary, no-one used either." So it could have been a success if Netscape had used it. Think where we might have been today.

Personally I'm all for any solution that gets us away from relying on a handful of typefaces such as Arial and Times. There is, however, a simpler solution. Microsoft should consider releasing several web fonts for free. These can then be installed by other browser manufacturers to ensure the font range we can use is much wider.

Now Bill, your blog was really interesting me until I got to the second page and the Next Page link didn't work. The last sentence was also cut off. (I even viewed the source - horror at the code!) And there were other errors, like the word "Blog" at the top overlapping the titles. But I know you and Chris Wilson are updating the code so I'll say no more.

One last thing. If Microsoft were to implement CSS Columns (as Firefox 2 did ages ago) then your blog could have been written to use them. An interesting read nonetheless.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

lsproc — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:52:53 GMT

Out of interest, what is the difference between EOT and http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-webfonts/#font-descriptions, or are they the same?

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Alex — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:58:36 GMT

Support for EOT is fine, but it shouldn't be the only format supported, support for TrueType/OpenType, Type 1/2 and (A man can dream) SVG fonts is also needed (WebKit supports SVG and TrueType/OpenType, Gecko looks to support the same, no idea about Type 1/2 support in either).

I can understand MS needs support from the large font foundry's (although I think that argument is silly, we don't talk about embedding DRM into images in case somebody hotlinks), but it also needs to be easy for people who don't want DRM to use their fonts (requiring them to use a Windows app to convert their fonts into a different format defeats the purpose).

Times have changed since this issue first came up, these days you can easily find nice looking, royalty free TrueType/OpenType fonts on the web. Being able to link to them could allow a font designer to upload the fonts to his website and allow people to hot link to them via a system like Coral Cache, allowing him to issue new versions and have the changes reflected on every web page using them, as well as allowing users to download the fonts directly and loading them onto their systems for use in Word or OpenOffice (or such)

Also, I find it hilarious that the statement “When designing for the Web, you have no clue what size of screen the reader is using” is cut off on my screen.

Anyway, About the “ClearType” fonts, they really are beautiful, with their kerning and ligatures. If only the GDI font renderer in Windows did them justice. I hope you guys have a few dev’s porting the WPF font sub-system (which is great) to GDI. ;)

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Mark — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:36:30 GMT

If you use the @font-face{ src: url(...) }scheme, does it always download the font, even when it's already installed on the client?

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Alex — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:48:28 GMT

You can reference the local copy via something like

src: local("Font Face"), url("/font.ttf") format("truetype");

I think the browser should cache the font, Safari re-downloads the font each time it's used and doesn't show anything until it loads the font, so you end up with large chunks of white space on each page load until the font suddenly appears.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Ben — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:05:10 GMT

Thank you MS for getting this technology into the hands of the W3C. I'm all for good, legal, and useful ways of supplying improved font technology and rendering to web design...and your technology will help type foundries feel comfortable in supplying their hard work for us to use on the web.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Chris — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:19:03 GMT

The second it becomes aparent that I need to boot up a virtualization of Windows within parallel to use another program besides IE6 or IE7, will be the day you lose total support.

I am expecting IE8 to be on all Operating Systems so that I don't have to run a PoS Windows just to view a browser. On top of that, not only do I have to have 2 copies, one for IE6 and one for IE7 because there are ways to install multiple versions of IE but also makes it unstable.

You complete me, IE with your bastard hell rendition of life.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Trevor — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:22:15 GMT

Did I miss part of the setup required here?

I viewed the site in IE7 and IE8 at multiple resolutions and All of them appear as if a CSS stylesheet is missing or something.

No nice fonts, tons of blue underlining, clipping, overlapping.

There's also a "This Tab has been recovered" message that pops up... what is that all about?

I also noticed in IE8 that it messes up IE internally. Check out the Internet Options and click on the advanced Tab. Where did all the radio/checkboxes go?

If you highlight the text, there is a flash of the text that occurs before the final highlight... sorta like a bold-unbold issue.

PS will these fonts work properly with the FuzzyType turned off? Most of us have no intention of turning this feature back on until it is fixed.

Oh great! now IE8 is completely locked up!

Nice feature! Not! - Epic Fail.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

What gives — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:26:14 GMT

What is with all the VML crap in that page? Where in the W3C standards is VML? I only see SVG?

And whats with the MSO styles? did you use the saveas feature of Word? (#1 no-no in Web site design)

Man I thought the sample code posted last week was crap, this stuff takes it to a whole new level!

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Ain — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:30:28 GMT

EOT is another dead end of Microsoft's developments and just goes to show that the Redmond giant is still executing its closed format ideology.

WebKit has had the proposed CSS 3 Web Fonts support for almost a year now and is surely <a href="http://tekkie.flashbit.net/browsers/webkit-is-leading-the-run-for-css3">leading the run for CSS3 compatibility</a>.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Steve — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:39:36 GMT

2 Things:

1.) The "embeded" font thing suffers from this bug in IE:

https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=337678

Whereby it causes additional redundant and annoying statusbar messages for single downloaded items.

Since this bug is marked "won't be fixed in IE8, 'will likely never ever be fixed'*** "

2.) The "requirement" for a site to have a 1400px horizontal resolution in order to be viewable goes against Sooooo many rules of web design it isn't funny. If your site doesn't render at 1024x768 without issue, YOUR design needs to be fixed. CSS provides some very nice features for handling screen sizes, and a sprinkle of JavaScript can work magic, in transforming a 1 to 2 to 3 column layout by screen width for optimal display.

3.) DOCTYPE. There's no excuse anymore. Not adding one indicates a non-interest in pushing new technology on the Web. IE/Lack of Doctype is exactly what is holding back the Web.

*** Global interpretation of "we will consider this for a future version of IE"

Invalid HTML and conflict of interest

Joe Clark — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:27:29 GMT

Your site still has the same invalid HTML you advertised as having been fixed. On the plus side, this page’s stylesheet is at least readable, unlike the white-on-black horror on your old blog.

A typefoundry with whom Microsoft has a sales relationship should not be called “prestigious,” for it leads people to accuse you of a conflict of interest. So: You have a conflict of interest.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

billybob — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:36:04 GMT

"Three versions of the EMBEDDEDFONT have been defined to this point. The second and third add additional data at the end of the structure, just before the "FontData" entry."

Shouldn't you decide on one format if you are going to make it part of a spec? Also why does the submission mostly link to microsoft.com for its definition? Shouldn't everything be in the actual spec so that things cannot be changed on the fly. Not that I would ever suggest Microsoft would change standards...

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Faramond — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:16:01 GMT

Why not release a second set of core fonts for the web (but this time with more Verdanas and Georgias and fewer Comic Sanses and Webdings.) That would be a much more elegant (i.e., standard OpenType, supported by all browsers, single-download) solution than what you propose with EOT.

I understand that fonts are costly to develop, but why not team up with Apple, Adobe, Google, possibly a Linux vendor or two to develop them? You could split the cost! Alternately, how much would it cost for other browsers to adopt EOT? It might be less expensive for them to pay for the creation of new web fonts.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Mitch 74 — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:54:57 GMT

Gasp! No wonder C.Wilson wanted to throttle you! I haven't seen code that atrocious ever since I corrected a webpage created under Word 97 - and ended up shaving off 95% of the code and rewriting most diagrams.

Then, looking as I'm using Firefox 3 on Linux, the MS fonts aren'tavailable to me - and your webpage ends up with boxes overlapping each other really, really badly.

Your design, as said, isn't fluid at all.

Now, EOT becoming a public standard isn't a bad thing, as long as the anti-copy algorithm is public too (so that anybody can write a 'font protector'), like SSL is (a good encryption algorithm can be open, what is encoded with it _requires_ the key - if it requires obscurity be efficient, it isn't good). Will that be the case?

Moreover, what will be the advantage of EOT over TrueType for unprotected fonts? None? Then support websites using embedded TrueType fonts. It can't be that difficult.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Mohammed Alaa — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:21:09 GMT

I think this is a dream that can become true but it won't be good!

Just imaging how many website you browse and check everyday?

do you realize how much space you will need to store the installed fonts from the internet browsing?

that's only if you will open a professional websites, what about the poups and ads and the other websites that we just check for fun!

i say it's a really good idea but i would like to see how it's implemented!

Thanks,

Mohammed

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Joe Clark — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:55:03 GMT

http://blog.fawny.org/2008/07/22/billhillsite/

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Jon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:44:08 GMT

So what you seem to be saying is, ten years after you went one way and Netscape went another, leading to nobody using either approach, the rest of the web community has gone way and now you've decided to go another? We've come such a long way! I guess everyone will just carry on using sIFR then.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Jon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:45:35 GMT

So what you seem to be saying is, ten years after you went one way and Netscape went another, leading to nobody using either approach, the rest of the web community has gone one way and you've decided to go another? We've come such a long way! I guess everyone will just carry on using sIFR then.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

John A. Bilicki III — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:09:04 GMT

Hi Bill,

Replace...

<![if !vml]>

with...

<!--[if !vml]>

...and that will fix a lot of the validation errors on your page. ;-)

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Gyrobo — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:33:29 GMT

I'm sure after cleaning up Bill Hill's site, Chris Wilson will demand the immediate implementation of multi-column layout.

...

Please? You can add a proprietary prefix, everyone else is doing it...

They were designed to be viewed on...

TheSteve — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:34:17 GMT

"They were designed to be viewed on...", you're kidding right?

These days the only thing we should be requiring is an internet connection!

Please read: http://www.cameratim.com/personal/soapbox/morons-in-webspace and get back to us.

Thanks!

TheSteve

They were designed to be viewed on...

TheSteve — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:40:59 GMT

Pardon me.

I should have prefaced that last comment with a caveat "no slight intended by the title of the linked page".

It's just been a long time, thankfully, since I've seen a "this site is best viewed in.." type of message.

I flashed back to 1999.

Thanks!

TheSteve

re: Font Embedding on the Web

thacker — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:53:48 GMT

Hill--

It would help if fonts from folders in addition to the Windows Font folder could be referenced within the WEFT tool -- font management applications.

Possibly include font link, in addition to EOT, within IE8. Let the market decide the value. But then conditional comments can be used to support both.

Without getting into specifics, copyright infringement for justification of only EOT is pretty weak. Sell the positive benefits of its use and include a major overhaul of the WEFT tool.

Thanks.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Velveeta Dentata — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:05:11 GMT

This is a joke. First of all, this page should never even have been release *UNTIL* the code was valid.

And then you link to a three column layout that can only be viewed at 1440x900? This is truly and utterly pathetic. You just don't get it.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Maguire — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:39:59 GMT

What a waste of HTML! What the !@#$ was that code written in? Microsoft Bob?

*shudder* that is some damn ugly code I'm surprised it even rendered at all.

I'm not sure what technology you were trying to sell but it got lost in the tag soup catastrophe that that site contains.

Spend a few minutes with HTMLTidy and the W3C before posting please.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Ahmad Alfy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:51:34 GMT

Thumb up for Joe Clark and TheSteve!

Bill, How did you publish that page with the way it look? and what exactly did you use to make this ... I dont know what to call it, thats not a webpage

I need some air, This code hurts my eye!

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Alex — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:41:25 GMT

"So what you seem to be saying is, ten years after you went one way and Netscape went another, leading to nobody using either approach, the rest of the web community has gone one way and you've decided to go another? We've come such a long way! I guess everyone will just carry on using sIFR then."

IE (and Netscape) used the CSS standard to implement this, but neither used the fonts specified in the spec.

This has changed in CSS3, if you check the CSS3 fonts draft you'll see it references the Embeddable OpenType format MS created, so you can't say this is some MS only "screw the standards" action like they used to love.

What they need to do is also implement the other formats specified in the spec, eot can't be the only format, at a minimum plain truetpye is needed as well.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Eden — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:31:17 GMT

I'm curious... IEBlog has been a good discussion place for future features of IE. Where are those people bashing MS and IE from?

Font-embedding can be beneficial to many web designer. However, font industry cares if MS "suggests" people simply spreading fonts around the Internet.

I agree his blog sucks (oops). So can we stop talking about his blog? Thanks.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Jeff L — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:28:02 GMT

Aside from being an atrocious site, the fonts look fine on Firefox, because I've actually got Cambria on my machine. So unfortunately your example is lost on anyone who already has that font.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Richard Fink — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:02:55 GMT

@Joe Clark

I take issue with one thing you write on your blog re: Bill Hill's posting...

"The only people who are going to want to use Web fonts are Macintosh standardistas, and they’ll demand good code."

If you are referring to the kind of download-on-demand EOT font packages to which Hill refers, I don't think many authors are going to accept the additional hassle and download times. I agree.

However, the desire for a wider range of fonts for use in Web pages is certainly widespread, if latent. Historiclly, there is seldom a clamoring in advance of anything that, once available, quickly achieves widespread use.

(Did you need or want an "Internet" in 1985?)It's impossible to do accurat market research for somehing that does not as yet, exist.

I'm not a designer but I've seen my own bare-bones pages transformed by just a sprinkling of Photoshop text in a contrasting font.

And no standardista, I, either.

I have used .eot / Weft font embedding

Brett Merkey — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:25:33 GMT

***

I have used font embedding via Weft for a long while and all I can say is this article, along with an absolutely clueless blog site, have set acceptance of this technology back prodigiously.

There is a real need for embedded font technology appropriate to Web sites and Web applications. I believe Microsoft has a viable approach -- but you would never come to that conclusion on the basis of this unfortunate article.

***

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Blaise Kal — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:41:21 GMT

@Tom

>Blaise appears to be unaware that Truetype is on its way out. OpenType is the future, largely because the font foundries are migrating their old Type 1 (i.e. professional) fontbase to it rather than to TrueType.

.ttf (TrueType) was just an example. OpenType is of course fine too. Anything but EOT, which is only supported by Microsoft and would take years and years to become a standard, if ever.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Lambros Vasiliou — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:30:21 GMT

Great work on pushing embedded fonts I have been waiting for this for long now!!

re: Font Embedding on the Web

cwilso — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:23:16 GMT

My comments on font embedding - and response to some of these comments - are at my new blog, at http://cwilso.com/2008/07/23/fonts-embedding-vs-linking/.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Jason — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:52:58 GMT

Could you just implement CSS @font-face rules to make it easy for everyone? WebKit/Safari already does this. It makes it so much easier for developers and it is a standard.

http://webkit.org/blog/124/downloadable-fonts/

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Chris Wilson [MSFT] — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:31:00 GMT

@Jason - as a matter of fact, we implemented CSS @font-face rules TEN YEARS AGO. Pay attention.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Andrey Moraru — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:34:20 GMT

Although this idea sounds almost as cool as embedding videos sounded several years ago, it will most probably become a general "no-no" for the standard website designing as the sound and music embedding became.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Donal — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:25:26 GMT

For someone who very validly states

“When designing for the Web, you have no clue what size of screen the reader is using”.

To then go on and state that

"They were designed to be viewed on a 1400 x 900 display, and should be viewed using the F11 key to make Internet Explorer go FullScreen, to get rid of menus, address bars and anything else that distracts from reading."

is rediculous.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

genenbottle — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:19:57 GMT

Are their any plan on adding tags in favorite.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Nobody — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:55:07 GMT

was XORing data considered secure 1996?

re: Font Embedding on the Web

John A. Bilicki III — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 21:53:39 GMT

None of the browsers I tested (IE8B1, Gecko 1.9, Safari 3.1, Opera 9.5) support focus/outline for checkboxes. This is pretty lame considering it's one of the most difficult elements to determine if it has focus or not (when I press the spacebar to check it as I always do).

This makes me wonder...do browser vendors maintain a static list of elements and handpick what they decide they will support (selectors, properties, values, etc) or are any of the engines setup so that this stuff should automatically just work based on a dynamic cross reference?

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Charlie — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:14:38 GMT

So Beta 2 is due in August, and RTM before 2009.

This doesn't leave much time for Beta 3!

Are we going to see any fixes after Beta 2? or will this be a release where you tell us that's it! Any other features / bug fixes will have to wait until another release?

I Seriously hope there is a Beta 3. Beta 1 was an Alpha, and didn't live up to expectations (except for CSS 2.1, and finally "some" better DOM support)

Still fails the grade on a being a real worthy browser ATM.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Ben Darlow — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:29:53 GMT

Joe Clark more thoroughly deconstructed the article above than I think any of the rest of us could hope to, but I am still left with questions based on the comments above by Chris Wilson.

You state that Internet Explorer has supported @font-face embedding for ten years (and /get with the program/ etc. etc.), but isn't this only the self-same EOT embedding that nobody uses or cares about, rather than TrueType as now supported by Safari?

I agree that directly linking to system-installable font files is a messy solution, but contrasted with what is effectively an obfuscation wrapper around fonts, created using proprietary software, it's easily the better one.

What possible reasons do Microsoft have for not implementing support for embedding TrueType (or even OpenType) fonts via the @font-face CSS declaration? Could you at least explain that?

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Ralph — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:15:39 GMT

I can't believe there is an entire thread dedicated to the argument over a non-standard font issue, when developers would much rather see features they care about added to IE.

How about some OPACITY people!? (the CSS property that is, we'd like TRANSPARENCY from the IE team)

How about some improved DOM support for Select and Table elements, why must these be soooo broken?

How about addEventListener? We realize this spec has only been around for like Two-Thousand-And-Five-Hundred days or so, but surely support must be almost ready now?

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Glen — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:38:50 GMT

"What possible reasons do Microsoft have for not implementing support for embedding TrueType (or even OpenType) fonts via the @font-face CSS declaration? Could you at least explain that?"

I think by not doing that they're trying to get the other browser makers to support EOT. Time is money, and they already have something that works.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

someone — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:29:14 GMT

Why is that utility web-based and not downloadable?

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Karthik Ram — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:47:20 GMT

This is all great..but as GM do you / MS have any plans / dates as to when MS will retire IE 6? If so, can you share them?

Like an automatic update that would remove it? Something that will make it stop working? I am getting ready to start using IE 8 technologies for serious development, but it is increasingly difficult to ensure cross-browser compatibility of 3 different versions of A browser.

re: Font Embedding on the Web

Karthik Ram — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:47:52 GMT

This is all great..but as GM do you / MS have any plans / dates as to when MS will retire IE 6? If so, can you share them?

re: Font Embedding on the Web

EricLaw [MSFT] — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:28:51 GMT

No, IE6 will never be removed by "automatic update." It will eventually fall out of support, on the schedule outlined here: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifesupsps/#Internet_Explorer

re: Font Embedding on the Web

thacker — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:48:41 GMT

Hill--

Tried my hand at use of EOT via the font-face rules. http://boinkinchipmunks.com/web/articles/white.aspx

This page is a partial reproduction of a Texterity online magazine publication. Texterity is a service that uses a propriety technology to deliver exact reproductions of a client's print magazine to a Web browser. The problems with these specialized types of delivery are self evident.

EOT was well suited for this. Since EOT EULAs are up in the air so to speak, Calibri and Cambria were used rather than exact duplication of the publication typefaces. Font-face rules have been specified using an external style sheet within conditional comments. Partial subsets were used. XHTML 1.1 custom, CSS 2.1, Priority 3 WCAG 1.0, blah blah blah compliant. The CSS could have been done much better by someone who is much more proficient than I.

Trustworthy Browsing with IE8: Summary

IEBlog — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:37:04 GMT

Back in June, Dean Hachamovitch kicked off a series of blog posts explaining how the IE team approached

Font Embedding on the Web

IE8 팀 블로그 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:08:41 GMT

안녕하세요 Bill Hill 입니다. 웹에서의 폰트를 인쇄물과 같은 수준으로 높이기 위해 노력 중 입니다. 이번 주에 커다란 진전이 있었습니다. 미국의 유력 폰트 배급업체가 Embedded