Google Chrome will support Web open font format

A bug follow-up message from the Chrome Explorer project recently showed that Google Chrome is intentionally deploying Web-open font format, but the message does not indicate when Chrome will launch the feature. The Web-open font format, launched by Mozilla, is designed to allow designers to use their personalized fonts on the web.

The Web open font format allows designers to link their own font files like linked pictures and use that font to display text. Web Open font format is to solve the problem of CSS3 @font-face function, @font-face allows the browser to download the specified font, but does not indicate the format of the font, the use of @font-face may have different effects in different browsers. Last year, the famous blog site Boing Boing has used @font-face technology to rebuild the site, the results failed.

Another advantage of the Web open font format is that it is itself compressed, thus avoiding the problem of downloading huge font problems, the Web open font format has now been deployed to Firefox 3.6,opera and Microsoft has indicated that it will provide support, which has now been submitted to the consortium seeking to become standard. However, Microsoft's IE9 does not support the format yet, but Microsoft is one of the standard's proponents, and the format is also mentioned in the IE product blog, so we can expect IE9 's final release to include support for that feature.

If Chrome also supports web-open font formats, Apple Safari will be the only browser currently not labeled to support the technology.

In addition to browser support, another important issue is the support of font designers because the Web open font format is not secure, and font traders may not want to support it, though, including Adobe, House Industries,hoefler & Frere-jones, and Itc,linotype, the font vendor, supports the format.

Although web-open font formatting does not solve all the problems of Web fonts, it is a big step in the right direction, with Firefox, Opera and Chrome supporting the technology, and designers are expected to quickly use their favorite fonts in their web design.

For more information on web-safe fonts, refer to the Mozilla hack blog.