Embedding Fonts for All Browsers

[iain010100]

What is the current state of embedded font technology?

I'm helping someone get their web pages to work properly. The problem
is, these pages rely on the font "Mona Lisa" for every design element.
"Mona Lisa," as I understand, is a Mac system font (the creator used a
Mac-based web design program). The page needs to display this font and
not some default set by the browser, and must be viewable in all major
browsers (IE, Netscape, Firefox, AOL, etc.) for both Mac and PC.

I spent the past couple of hours searching, trying to get the answer.
It doesn't look like there is a way to do this unless I convert all
text to images.

Am I right?
-- Iain

 

[dorayme]

What is the current state of embedded font technology?

I'm helping someone get their web pages to work properly. The problem
is, these pages rely on the font "Mona Lisa" for every design element.
"Mona Lisa," as I understand, is a Mac system font (the creator used a
Mac-based web design program). The page needs to display this font and
not some default set by the browser, and must be viewable in all major
browsers (IE, Netscape, Firefox, AOL, etc.) for both Mac and PC.

I spent the past couple of hours searching, trying to get the answer.
It doesn't look like there is a way to do this unless I convert all
text to images.

Am I right?

How important is it? If it is very very important, crucial, use a
PDF and make it available via a simple link. If it is important
that you have proper website content, you just have to hope that
people will have the font and make it your first choice in the
font-family css instructions but ensure the site looks acceptable
in other more common fonts. If it is really true (surely not!)
that "these pages rely on the font "Mona Lisa" for every design
element" then this is not a good idea.

 

[Carolyn Marenger]

What is the current state of embedded font technology?

I'm helping someone get their web pages to work properly. The problem
is, these pages rely on the font "Mona Lisa" for every design element.
"Mona Lisa," as I understand, is a Mac system font (the creator used a
Mac-based web design program). The page needs to display this font and
not some default set by the browser, and must be viewable in all major
browsers (IE, Netscape, Firefox, AOL, etc.) for both Mac and PC.

I spent the past couple of hours searching, trying to get the answer.
It doesn't look like there is a way to do this unless I convert all
text to images.

Am I right?
-- Iain

To the best of my knowledge, the browsers I use, Konqueror & Firefox, do not
support embedded fonts. If the font is critical, then I would suggest a
pdf file. If the content is critical, not the 'look' then modify the
layout so that typeface, including size are suggestions not requirements.

Carolyn

 

[Neredbojias]

What is the current state of embedded font technology?

I'm helping someone get their web pages to work properly. The problem
is, these pages rely on the font "Mona Lisa" for every design element.
"Mona Lisa," as I understand, is a Mac system font (the creator used a
Mac-based web design program). The page needs to display this font and
not some default set by the browser, and must be viewable in all major
browsers (IE, Netscape, Firefox, AOL, etc.) for both Mac and PC.

I spent the past couple of hours searching, trying to get the answer.
It doesn't look like there is a way to do this unless I convert all
text to images.

Some browsers won't support such fonts, others will have overriding client
fonts in place. Since I'd never recommend a pdf file, I'd suggest you tune
your pages to work properly with what is commonly available.

 

[iain010100]

Hi,

Thank you for the replies. I'll tell the site creator to change their
fonts to something universal. Adobe acrobat is so incredibly slow to
load and it freezes my browser for a good full minute until it does.
For this reason I try to avoid doing anything PDF. I also always avoid
links to PDF files for that reason, and I certainly don't want to
engage my viewers to the same frustration.

Best Regards
-- Iain

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed (e-mail address removed) writing in

Adobe acrobat is so incredibly slow to
load and it freezes my browser for a good full minute until it does.
For this reason I try to avoid doing anything PDF.

Have a look at Foxit Reader <http://www.foxitsoftware.com>, IMHO, the best
reader available. It's light weight, renders superfast, no startup splash
screen, etc. I put it as a link like other people do to Adobe (this
document requires a PDF reader available at ...)

 

[Rik]

Have a look at Foxit Reader <http://www.foxitsoftware.com>, IMHO, the
best
reader available. It's light weight, renders superfast, no startup
splash
screen, etc. I put it as a link like other people do to Adobe (this
document requires a PDF reader available at ...)

I agree, a breath of fresh air after using Adobes bloated beast.

 

[dorayme]

Adobe acrobat is so incredibly slow to
load and it freezes my browser for a good full minute until it does.
For this reason I try to avoid doing anything PDF. I also always avoid
links to PDF files for that reason, and I certainly don't want to
engage my viewers to the same frustration.

You do not have to have Adobe PDF plug ins on a Mac and I assume
you don't on a PC? On a Mac i have one called "PDF Browser
Plugin.plugin" version 2.2.3 by manfred Scubert. It is very much
neater than the Adobe one.

As for slowness, it does rather depend on how you have prepared
the PDF in the first place in the case of you supplying things
via this format. Bigness and slowness are not inherent properties
like say the threesomeness of a set of wickets at one end of a
cricket strip. It is a property that may or may not be attached
to this object.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

(e-mail address removed) wrote:

As for slowness, it does rather depend on how you have prepared
the PDF in the first place in the case of you supplying things
via this format. Bigness and slowness are not inherent properties
like say the threesomeness of a set of wickets at one end of a
cricket strip. It is a property that may or may not be attached
to this object.

A simple page in PDF will much larger than in HTML, unless done in MS
Publisher! ;-)

 

[iain010100]

The slowness of Adobe Acrobat, which is the default PC viewer for
PDFs, is due to load up time. Any additional complexity in page layout
only adds to time.

I'm aware of at least one alternative PDF reader, but I doubt that any
of the page viewers will bother with them, assuming they have the
technical know-how to install them.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

The slowness of Adobe Acrobat, which is the default PC viewer for
PDFs, is due to load up time. Any additional complexity in page layout
only adds to time.

I'm aware of at least one alternative PDF reader, but I doubt that any
of the page viewers will bother with them, assuming they have the
technical know-how to install them.

You didn't quote, but my point was regardless of the 'reader' the PDF
format requires a larger file size for the same data than HTML document
and therein is the problem--download size.

To OP: find alternative fonts and only consider "image-text" for very
limited and restricted situations, such as a logo's text.

 

[dorayme]

A simple page in PDF will much larger than in HTML, unless done in MS
Publisher! ;-)

I think PDFs, generally, will be bigger than HTMLS. But given a
client, for example, might want to be making a PDF available (to
save cost of paying for proper integration into a website and
other reasons), the client can often make PDFs smaller than they
do.

 

[dorayme]

The slowness of Adobe Acrobat, which is the default PC viewer for
PDFs, is due to load up time. Any additional complexity in page layout
only adds to time.

I'm aware of at least one alternative PDF reader, but I doubt that any
of the page viewers will bother with them, assuming they have the
technical know-how to install them.

Yes, I guess this is a fair point. Hope it is ok if I pinch it
and use it as an additional caution in my next conversation with
a client who wants to put up a pdf on his or her site.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I think PDFs, generally, will be bigger than HTMLS. But given a
client, for example, might want to be making a PDF available (to
save cost of paying for proper integration into a website and
other reasons), the client can often make PDFs smaller than they
do.

Strip it down all you want, there is a very noticeable difference on
dialup! At least well done flash can stream.

 

[dorayme]

Strip it down all you want, there is a very noticeable difference on
dialup! At least well done flash can stream.

I will make my point yet again. There is a difference in size
between a big PDF and a small PDF. And you can apply this truth
to whatever comparisons or advice you want to give. For example,
if anyone is worried about the download times of a PDF, they can
consider a number of things. One of them is making it smaller. It
is not absolutely the most important alternative. But it is one
of them.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=E9rard_Talbot?=]

Hi,

Thank you for the replies. I'll tell the site creator to change their
fonts to something universal.

You have never given a link to the webpages for starters.
You have not explained why it was so important to use/display display
this font and not some default set by the browser.
Why did you insist that it would be viewable in browsers like Netscape
and AOL for both Mac and PC? To me, AOL is not a browser. Netscape is
now a marginal browser with less than 0.5% of users.

Gérard