fonts

Firefox 3.5 and the potential of Web typography

In addition to new features such as support for HTML 5, geo-location, and a noticeably faster engine, Firefox 3.5 added a new CSS rule that makes Web typography much more attractive.

@font-face is a CSS rule that allows Web designers to reference fonts not installed on end-user machines. Just as you would have a pointer to a server-based stylesheet or JavaScript file in your Web page code, you can now make reference to a hosted typeface.

You'll note that news sites such as CNET News and NYTimes.com are optimized to make Web type more readable and as stylish as possible, but there are many design possibilities via additional downloadable typefaces. (As with any linked asset, there is some level of security risk if a hacker gets their hands on the font file.)

Mozilla's John Daggett explains: Within a stylesheet, each @font-face rule defines a family name to be used, the font resource to be loaded, and the style characteristics of a given face such as whether it's bold or italic. Firefox 3.5 only downloads the fonts as needed, so a stylesheet can list a whole set of fonts of which only a select few will actually be used.

This function is something I would have expected to be commonplace by now (Safari began supporting it in Version 3.1 and Opera in Version 10) but neither have the market share to drive usage the way Firefox and Internet Explorer do. (Note: this function doesn't work in IE.)

Generally speaking, the Web browser has done a terrible job with type. We've been stuck with old standbys such as Helvetica or Times New Roman, and don't forget the oft-loathed Comic-Sans and other delightful Microsoft fonts that are often easy to read but lack any real style (Verdana, for example.) … Read more

Stylize your text

Art Text is a narrow-purpose graphics and text-styling tool that's easy--and even fun--to use. This program is primarily intended for creating stylized buttons, logos, and blocks of text that you can then export (in a variety of file formats) to another program for creating a final product, whether a brochure or a Web page.

Art Text gives you an intuitive interface with a toolbar, preview area, and multilayer support that should be familiar to anyone who works with graphics programs, and the most recent version can also handle multitouch trackpad gestures. In addition to basic editing tools like flipping, … Read more

Preview all your fonts at once with Flipping Typical

Depending on how much design work you've done, and what kind of software you're using, you probably have some idea of which fonts you have installed and what they look like. If you don't, there's a wonderfully simple Web app called Flipping Typical that gives you a WYSIWYG heads up of all of them at once.

You can type in whatever text you want to see and it will show you how it looks in each font, and the site updates in real time to reflect the changes. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to toggle … Read more

For many, Comic Sans not a pretty face

Comic Sans began 15 years ago as a project by Microsoft to add a note of informality for its ill-fated computer companion Bob.

But while Bob was euthanized years ago, Comic Sans has remained a staple of faux informality in the computer age, despite a decade-long effort to press the delete key on the comic book-style font. There's even a Ban Comic Sans Web site.

But as many people as hate it, more still use the font, only fueling the anger of its detractors.

The Wall Street Journal has a Page One story on Friday tracing the typeface, its … Read more

Kerning is important

Kern is a very simple, typography-inspired arcade game in which you try to precisely position missing letters into falling words without creating an "unnecessary ligature," i.e., a spot where the letters overlap. The visual design and sound effects of this game are impressively slick and elegant throughout--as befits a graphic design-themed game--but aside from the variety of typography-related words and point sizes, the gameplay is fairly repetitive and one-dimensional, especially for a paid app. Overall, Kern will be best-loved by design nerds (although it should be noted that even the gameplay only has a superficial relationship to … Read more

Find that font fast

If your profession or hobby requires you to sift through various font styles, FontExplorer Pro is one of the best tools available for the Mac. Featuring a clean, intuitive interface, this software makes it easy to quickly sort through available fonts, view previews, and get all the info you need about each font type. Quickly browse through system fonts, fonts you've recently imported, and decide which ones you want active in your library.

Perhaps our favorite part of FontExplorer Pro is the ability to browse the Linotype Store from within the interface, allowing you to discover and purchase new … Read more

First Look video: Art Text

This low-cost graphics app makes creating Web buttons, banners, and stylized text easy. With tons of premade templates and samples to get you started, Art Text lets you spend your time fine-tuning your work instead of starting from scratch. When you're done, you can export your work in several formats, letting you put the final touches on your design in your favorite graphics or image-editing program.

Still not convinced? Then check out this First Look video of Art Text for Mac to get a quick overview.

Google: Unicode conquers ASCII on the Web

I picture it happening this way. The Roman alphabet is on the run, pursued by a much larger army of Arabic characters with long scimitar-like ligatures, Chinese characters that look like throwing stars, and European peasant letters bristling with umlauts, cedillas, and tildes.

Unicode has overtaken ASCII as the most popular character encoding scheme on the World Wide Web, Mark Davis, Google's senior international software architect, said in a blog post. Also vanquished at almost exactly the same time was the Western European encoding.

Unicode is a character encoding standard that gracefully accommodates dozens of languages as well as … Read more

Switch quickly between Word's smart quotes and straight quotes

When I described how to replace Microsoft Word's smart quotes with straight quotes to keep the HTML versions of documents from breaking, several people objected, claiming that straight quotes make the docs more difficult to read. I agree completely, which is why I decided to tell you about the quickest way I know to convert from one quote style to the other. In just a few seconds you can optimize a document for the Web, or for readability in print or onscreen.

Suppose you want to put a Word document that's full of smart quotes--both the double quotation-mark … Read more

Fast fixes for five Word woes

You use your browser a lot. You use your e-mail program a lot. But the chances are better than even that you spend a big chunk of your workday in Microsoft Word. There's no way any application used by so many people for so many different tasks is going to be set up just right for you. Here are the five settings I changed to make Word work my way, more or less.

I say "more or less" because Word isn't quite the paragon of flexibility. You can make serious changes to the program's look … Read more