Hey there, I've been slowly studying up on html while I earn enough credits to get a page and I've run across two curious points to do with fonts and questions about them.

You can use your own fonts, but unless a visitor has the font you specify in your source code, they won't see it, but you cann't upload a font to where you upload your site page files and reference it there...does anyone know why this is?

And secondly, I have yet to run across a list of fonts that are loaded by default on various operation systems. Does a list of fonts that automatically get installed with various OS' exsist somewhere? and if so, can you post links here to them?

thanks

umm the fonts won't read because the users don't have them, therefore they can't see your font (catch-22) at least that is what I think you are asking about.

To circumwent this problem, make your buttons into .gif files (or any other image file) and slice and code them. That way the users can see the cool font even if they don't have it.

Lastly for the main content you can't just keep on making image files just use arial or times new roman, every computer now days have those files and they look the most professional

1. Just the way it is. Don't know. I guess it would be possible to have a temporary file for fonts, but there isn't LOL. So basically, the only reason you can't put a font on your server for reference is because the browser still couldn't display it. But, if you design in Flash, the font comes embeded within the file.

*And if your site is really good, you could have some kind of downloader that users download that extracts the font to their fonts, or something like that. There might be a way to put the font into their directory when they hit your site, like some kind of download prompt; just an idea to play around with.

2. I think that the following links are what you're looking for; listed from what I think is best to worst

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/

http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-fonts-in-mac-os-x

http://www.fixarna.com/frontpage/windowsfonts.htm

@Dream

thanks for the suggestion, this'll probably be my main solution for things

@ninjamunky

LISTS! Score! Thanks man, those were what I was looking for =D

thanks for the replys and explainations, much appreciated

There was some way to do this... at least the technology was in its gestative stage when I'd read about it around 3-4 years ago. It's called WEFT or Web Embedded Font Technology. I haven't really kept track of it recently, so just google for WEFT and am sure you'll find loads of hits.

This was supposed to set the next standards for implementing embedded fonts on sites - to overcome just what you're trying to...

All the best..

Chased after that, and came across...

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/em...eft3/weft00.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/em...ft3/default.htm
http://groups.msn.com/MicrosoftWEFTusersco...ssageboard.msnw

..downloaded the program and checked it out, apparantly it just adds some css coding and then creates an "eot" file that points browsers to the files to load the font characters. It's pretty slick, but it's probably something that can be coded yourself. I've never heard of an "eot" file and don't know how to create it without the program though =/

eot files are more than likely just simple text files. Just open them in a text editor and it should work.

As for the font system, it is best to use the combination of the following fonts in your CSS.

Arial, Helvettica, Verdana

Those three put together seem to be the pretty bogstandard text, that has literally become a design essential. Any serif-fonts are not looked upon as being eye-candy when it comes to websites. However, this rule doesn't apply to documents.

For ages it has been the annoyance of many web newbies. The best way to do it is to stick to the design standards. I you are going to use non-standard fonts, then make sure they are images.


--mik:P

Twitch:

unfortunately eot files are not text files =/ can't open them with notepad or anythign like that.


I don't really want to use any fancy fonts or anything, I just want to make sure that my site can be read the same way from any browser so I can work out table sizes and stuff. mainly that's it, just making sure things are viewable by most people.

so I'll keep to arial, Helvettica and verdana, but in the reverse order I like verdana better

Just remember what the public wants (unless it is a personal site).


--mik

I think the reason why you cannot upload your own fonts to the server is because of license and copyright issues. You can, however, have a link on your site that says "To best view this site, make sure you have blah blah font downloaded, and you can download it at so and so dot com." That way you can make sure that viewers will see the site the way it is supposed to look if they want to. The text will show up no matter what, but it will come out in times new roman or times.

Basically these are some of the fonts that are mainly used on all OS's that you can feel safe using:

Impact
Verdana
Times new roman
Times
Comic Sans MS
Arial