StackOverflow2013

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals

PO
text
Body
copied!<p>I usually split this into 3 categories:</p> <ul> <li>Local system fonts (what we have used for years, <code>font-family: Arial, sans-serif;</code>)</li> <li>Remote system fonts (fonts linked and downloaded from the server with @font-face a.k.a. <strong>web fonts</strong>)</li> <li>3rd party solutions</li> </ul> <p>sIFR is a 3rd party solution. So are <a href="http://wiki.github.com/sorccu/cufon" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Cufón</a>, <a href="http://typeface.neocracy.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">typeface.js</a>, <a href="http://typekit.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">TypeKit</a> (invite needed), <a href="http://www.typeselect.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">TypeSelect</a> and loads and loads of other libraries.</p> <p>The main problem with remote system fonts are:</p> <ul> <li>legal issues (hopefully the promise of <a href="http://people.mozilla.com/~jkew/woff/woff-spec-latest.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">WOFF</a> (Web Open Font Format) will settle this, <a href="http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/10/woff/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">fx3.6 will support WOFF</a>)</li> <li>finding complete free fonts (with complete I mean as many glyphs as possible, usually free fonts don´t support enough glyphs to be viable, see <a href="http://www.ascendercorp.com/news/web-fonts-study/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Study of Free/Shareware Web Fonts</a> done by Ascender Corporation)</li> <li>You need to create a special font-file for the Internet Explorer UA called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_OpenType" rel="nofollow noreferrer">eot</a> (Embedded OpenType)</li> <li><a href="http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2009/10/13/font-face-and-performance/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Performance</a></li> <li>FOUT (Flash of Unstyled Text)</li> </ul> <p>Problems with 3rd party solutions might include:</p> <ul> <li>legal issues</li> <li>depend on JavaScript (and in some cases plug-ins like flash)</li> <li>performance (mostly better then sIFR but still slower then local system fonts)</li> <li>text can´t be selected and copied in some cases</li> <li>in some cases they break the context manu</li> <li>FOUT</li> </ul> <p>The word of the web today is that Cufón is the new sIFR and that Cufón is the jQuery for fonts on the web. I however don´t like what they did in their latest releases using custom <code><cufon></code>-elements that break the validation of the document but I´m web standards puritan so my words are to be taken <em>cum grano salis</em> ;)</p>

Querying!

Guidance

An individual column

Larger individual text columns get their own page to allow for proper reading.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload