For my website, I am getting following feedback from Google's PageSpeed Insights: Leverage the font-display CSS feature to ensure text is user-visible while web fonts are loading. What does that mean?
CSS font-display allows you to control how web fonts are swapped with system fonts while/after they load. Lighthouse is telling you that you're loading a large amount of font data using #font-face so there will be lag (up to several seconds) where your content is blank while waiting for the fonts to load.
You can change this so that a fallback font (from your local system) loads right away and then gets swapped with your web fonts once they're loaded. (be aware that your fonts may have different sizes and cause things to jump around when they load).
Consider a structure like this:
#font-face {
font-family: "Open Sans Regular";
font-style: normal;
src: url("fonts/OpenSans-Regular.woff2") format("woff2");
font-weight: 400;
font-display: swap;
}
p {
font-family: "Open Sans Regular", Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
}
font-display:swap; means when the page renders, all paragraph tags will use the FIRST AVAILABLE fallback font until Open Sans Regular has loaded. (In this case Helvetica on a Mac and Arial on Windows).
This gives you initial content on the screen in several milliseconds instead of potentially waiting several seconds for a font to load.
Also Preload web fonts
Use to fetch your font files earlier.
Ensure text remains visible during webfont load
Font Feature is a technique to use advanced text styles and effects as designed by the font developer. A font may support a number of features: some examples include different kinds of ligatures, tabular numbers, or small caps.This picture explain much better
You can solve this issue by using #fontface or you can also try different setting of font-display.
Related
I was wondering if the San Basic Sans Light SF font be used with CSS? I'm not sure what font family this font belongs too and can't seem to get it to work with CSS. The closest I've got so far is using the sans-serif font family. I was wondering if anyone could guide me on how I could use Basic Sans Light SF in my CSS code.
Thanks, Grant
#follower-alert .text {
text-shadow: 5px 0px 5px black;
font-family: sans-serif;
}
The CSS font-family property tells the browser to load a font from the operating system. If the browser can't find the font requested, it tries the next one on the list. It it reaches the end of the list, it uses the browser's default font.
What that means is that, when specifying a specific font using the font-family property, you are simply requesting that the client use that font if the client has that font installed. If you request Helvetica, but the person visiting your site hasn't installed Helvetica, the browser will fall back to the next option.
There are a few keywords that don't specify a specific font, but rather tell the browser to load which ever font it thinks best fits the category. Most browsers load the operating system's default for the specified category. Those keywords (called generic family names) are as follows:
serif - any fairly neutral font that has serifs.
sans-serif - any fairly neutral font that does not have serifs.
monospace - any font in which all characters are the same width.
cursive - any font which simulates handwriting (this is loosely defined).
fantasy - any decorative font with artistic flourishes (this is loosely defined).
Outside of the generic family names, you can specify a specific font in quotes. If you have a font installed on your computer called "Basic Sans Light SF", you can use the following CSS property:
font-family: "Basic Sans Light SF", sans-serif;
On your computer (and any other computer that has the Basic Sans Light SF font installed), the text will be displayed in that font. On a computer that doesn't have the font installed, some other sans-serif font will be used installed (whatever the OS default is).
You can get around this limitation using a CSS technique called #font-face to embed a web font in your page.
Embedding fonts in your page slows down load times but increases consistency. Because web fonts are a new technology, there are competing file formats which have different levels of support on different devices. For full coverage, the font you use should be optimized for the web, and you should include multiple formats of the same font on your server. You also need to be sure the font you are using is open source or is licensed to you for use on the web.
Google Fonts offers a large repository of open-source web-ready fonts, hosted through fast CDNs and easily embeddable in any webpage. You may consider using a font available through this service.
If you have a web-ready and licensed font, you can host it on your own web server and use the #font-face property manually. Assuming your font files are in a subfolder named "fonts", an example (from CSS Tricks) is below. This includes all the file formats needed for the maximum possible level of browser coverage. This page goes into great detail about the different types of web-font file formats available and the advantages / disadvantages of each.
#font-face {
font-family: 'Basic Sans Light SF';
src: url('fonts/BasicSansLightSF.eot'); /* IE9 Compat Modes */
src: url('fonts/BasicSansLightSF.eot?#iefix') format('embedded-opentype'), /* IE6-IE8 */
url('fonts/BasicSansLightSF.woff2') format('woff2'), /* Super Modern Browsers */
url('fonts/BasicSansLightSF.woff') format('woff'), /* Pretty Modern Browsers */
url('fonts/BasicSansLightSF.ttf') format('truetype'), /* Safari, Android, iOS */
url('fonts/BasicSansLightSF.svg#basicSansLightSF') format('svg'); /* Legacy iOS */
}
I have a script which converts HTML to PDF. On Windows, it runs just fine.
But when I run the script on Ubuntu, the Arial and Courier fonts do not work correctly.
I presume this is because those fonts don't come with Ubuntu by default. That's fine, it's not a big deal.
I'm just wondering what I should change the following to, such that it will still work on Windows and use a font that is close to Arial and Courier respectively on Ubuntu?
font-family: "Arial";
font-family: courier;
Thanks
For the Arial-esque font use
font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
and for the Courier-esque font use
font-family: Courier, monospace;
These rules basically mean: take the first one if available, otherwise the next one, otherwise repeat until the end. It should work in normal CSS (not sure about your particular implementation, though).
sans-serif and monospace are browser or system dependent values for fonts that have been specified as those font classes (e. g. “DejaVu Sans” and “Ubuntu Mono”).
One way is to use Web Safe fonts. Here's a list of Web Safe fonts you can use:
CSS Web Safe Fonts
Another way can be to use a font from your web directory or fonts available on the web from services like Google Fonts,etc.
Here's its usage:
#font-face {
font-family: fontName;
src: url('/font/xyz.woff');
}
Check here for reference on font face rules.
Check this for getting started with Google Fonts.
Check this page for the Font Stack, showing the compatibility of fonts with different OS.
I have the following CSS:
font-family: 'HelveticaNeue-UltraLight', 'Helvetica Neue UltraLight', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 100; letter-spacing: 1px; }
It works on all Mac browsers (Chrome, Safari) But I opened my project on Chrome and Internet explorer on Windows, it displays the font as bold rather than light. I'm not sure how to fix this but I need the design to work cross platform with the design that appears on mac.
Thanks in advance.
Edit: I've tried using arial but arial doesn't become light on both mac and windows.
The font you see on Windows is not bold, it is just regular Arial.
In almost all Windows systems, the first available font family among those listed in the font-family value is Arial. Since Arial has no typeface of weight 100, or of any weight less than 400, the normal (400) weight typeface is used instead, by the font matching algorithm.
Fonts in standard distributions of Windows generally lack typefaces with weight less than normal. So to use lighter typefaces, you would need to use downloadable fonts (web fonts) via #font-face. See e.g. Is #font-face usable now?
(SO has many specific questions on using #font-face, check them if you run into specific problems with it).
The font-family property inform the browser that it's needed to use that font. If there is no path for it, it will check if the system have that one.
In order to be able to have a font that will work on all systems, you need to use the #font-face property.
This last one will allow you to specify path for all the format font, that most of the browsers will download to display it correctly. (For your information all recent browser support it)
#font-face {
font-family: 'myFont';
src: url('myFont.eot');
src: url('myFont.eot?#iefix') format('embedded-opentype'),
url('myFont.woff') format('woff'),
url('myFont.ttf') format('truetype'),
url('myFont.svg#myFont') format('svg');
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;
}
If you want more information about that property you can check the reference here:
http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css3_pr_font-face_rule.asp
Unfortunetly in your case the font HelveticaNeue is copyrighted, you need to buy the rights to be able to use it as a webfont.
You can take a look here about pricing:
http://www.fonts.com/search/all-fonts?searchtext=HelveticaNeue#product_top
Also, if you have already the right and have one of the format that you wish to convert to a webfont, you can accomplish that here:
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/
Finally, if you prefer you can use Google Fonts that will host the files for you, and you will just have a small script to insert inside your pages:
http://www.google.com/fonts
You can use web fonts (free or paid) as suggested by others, or just use a nice font stack that is likely to cover all bases. CSS Tricks has a nice set of them: http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/font-stacks/
In terms of font weight, your CSS specifies a very light font weight:
font-weight: 100;
So if you want to use bold Arial instead, you need to change that.
I'm running into a small issue with a site I'm working on. I'm using the font services from Fonts.com to serve up the CSS and web fonts I use on the site, and everything works well except in Internet. The page appears to render with the fonts correctly in place, but when the loading is complete, IE reverts back to the default font.
Here's a sample of the CSS:
#font-face{
font-family:"HelveticaNeueW02-55Roma";
src:url("/d/0b3a3fca-0fad-402b-bd38-fdcbad1ef776.eot?d44f19a684109620e484167aa390e81872e11b421ef14b20f5dda8683b7716e34431bd7031a61bffb8b38558710357d5ed49d8a7dcd4f490bf2bc9922040a50d670eaafb6e334fcf61c48a10483015d48bd9b9cb074a09c71c211940cb0c60886a2d42510bad7eced9195baae7bedb11ccbdb0d618032faccca0c925a83db7aac01d0bae4b090b6680179034630a36491101451eadad15f77b41f406d48f0f3592bf2731964d594bed634b405df69863674a8be20883212f56ec396a14e1cc983ae5cf8a554298e7314350fa96b78a363d2b4ccfc8ff090d5c8ce49e47d02bc317e0334f5b6efa484026&projectId=215db553-2cf6-4cbb-a5fd-6a4b7d7b8bac") format("eot");
}
#font-face{
font-family:"HelveticaNeueW02-55Roma";
src:url("/d/0b3a3fca-0fad-402b-bd38-fdcbad1ef776.eot?d44f19a684109620e484167aa390e81872e11b421ef14b20f5dda8683b7716e34431bd7031a61bffb8b38558710357d5ed49d8a7dcd4f490bf2bc9922040a50d670eaafb6e334fcf61c48a10483015d48bd9b9cb074a09c71c211940cb0c60886a2d42510bad7eced9195baae7bedb11ccbdb0d618032faccca0c925a83db7aac01d0bae4b090b6680179034630a36491101451eadad15f77b41f406d48f0f3592bf2731964d594bed634b405df69863674a8be20883212f56ec396a14e1cc983ae5cf8a554298e7314350fa96b78a363d2b4ccfc8ff090d5c8ce49e47d02bc317e0334f5b6efa484026&projectId=215db553-2cf6-4cbb-a5fd-6a4b7d7b8bac");
src:url("/d/d5af76d8-a90b-4527-b3a3-182207cc3250.woff?d44f19a684109620e484167aa390e81872e11b421ef14b20f5dda8683b7716e34431bd7031a61bffb8b38558710357d5ed49d8a7dcd4f490bf2bc9922040a50d670eaafb6e334fcf61c48a10483015d48bd9b9cb074a09c71c211940cb0c60886a2d42510bad7eced9195baae7bedb11ccbdb0d618032faccca0c925a83db7aac01d0bae4b090b6680179034630a36491101451eadad15f77b41f406d48f0f3592bf2731964d594bed634b405df69863674a8be20883212f56ec396a14e1cc983ae5cf8a554298e7314350fa96b78a363d2b4ccfc8ff090d5c8ce49e47d02bc317e0334f5b6efa484026&projectId=215db553-2cf6-4cbb-a5fd-6a4b7d7b8bac") format("woff"),url("/d/1d238354-d156-4dde-89ea-4770ef04b9f9.ttf?d44f19a684109620e484167aa390e81872e11b421ef14b20f5dda8683b7716e34431bd7031a61bffb8b38558710357d5ed49d8a7dcd4f490bf2bc9922040a50d670eaafb6e334fcf61c48a10483015d48bd9b9cb074a09c71c211940cb0c60886a2d42510bad7eced9195baae7bedb11ccbdb0d618032faccca0c925a83db7aac01d0bae4b090b6680179034630a36491101451eadad15f77b41f406d48f0f3592bf2731964d594bed634b405df69863674a8be20883212f56ec396a14e1cc983ae5cf8a554298e7314350fa96b78a363d2b4ccfc8ff090d5c8ce49e47d02bc317e0334f5b6efa484026&projectId=215db553-2cf6-4cbb-a5fd-6a4b7d7b8bac") format("truetype"),url("/d/b68875cb-14a9-472e-8177-0247605124d7.svg?d44f19a684109620e484167aa390e81872e11b421ef14b20f5dda8683b7716e34431bd7031a61bffb8b38558710357d5ed49d8a7dcd4f490bf2bc9922040a50d670eaafb6e334fcf61c48a10483015d48bd9b9cb074a09c71c211940cb0c60886a2d42510bad7eced9195baae7bedb11ccbdb0d618032faccca0c925a83db7aac01d0bae4b090b6680179034630a36491101451eadad15f77b41f406d48f0f3592bf2731964d594bed634b405df69863674a8be20883212f56ec396a14e1cc983ae5cf8a554298e7314350fa96b78a363d2b4ccfc8ff090d5c8ce49e47d02bc317e0334f5b6efa484026&projectId=215db553-2cf6-4cbb-a5fd-6a4b7d7b8bac#b68875cb-14a9-472e-8177-0247605124d7") format("svg");
}
and typical use cases:
body {
font-family: "DIN Next W02 Cond";
font-weight: normal;
font-size: 14px;
font-weight: normal;
}
p {
font-family: "HelveticaNeueW02-55Roma";
font-weight: normal;
font-size: 14px;
line-height: 1.5;
}
The wide font is what displays after the page finishes loading, while the narrow font (the correct font) is displayed during page load.
Is there an easy fix? Fonts.com provides a web portal to specify the fonts in the CSS, which they serve from their servers - so I can't easily edit that. I can edit the font-family property for elements using the web fonts, though. If any more information is needed, I'll provide it where possible.
Edit: this is not a flash of unstyled content, it renders properly from what is presumably the cache, then (upon re-downloading the file) discards the custom font and replaces it with a default font when the page is done loading. It's the reverse of what I and others are expecting, hence posting here for a fix.
the flicker you see is fouc or fout, im assuming your using IE9, it'll will display text in a default font while the web font loads — even in compatibility mode.
#font-face {
font-family: 'OpenSansLight';
src: url('OpenSans-Light-webfont.eot');
src: url('OpenSans-Light-webfont.eot?#iefix') format('embedded-opentype'),
url('OpenSans-Light-webfont.woff') format('woff'),
url('OpenSans-Light-webfont.ttf') format('truetype'),
url('OpenSans-Light-webfont.svg#OpenSansLight') format('svg');
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;
}
that's the best way to get #font-face cross-browser. if you need those files created, head over to fontsquirrel.com
font loader is used by typekit and google fonts to fix the flash; i'm not sure if you'll have to tweak it for your code, but you can snag it on github https://github.com/typekit/webfontloader
So for me, it was a local issue.
When we deployed to our staging server, the fonts displayed correctly in IE 7 and 8 .
Still don't know why they're not showing up locally, but at least it works in production.
My fonts display properly in IE8 locally. Also works in chrome and FF.
The fonts fail in production. I'm using fontawesome for bootstrap twitter.
I find that once the page is loaded, If I select the entire page then all the loaded fonts appear. So they are there, but IE8 disregards once the page is loaded.
I've checked quirks mode and all other combinations.
It's definitely a "when loaded" to "speed of load" in "relation to other CSS" issue.
Re-positioning the CSS link higher or lower in the code has effects - though no clear fix.
It would be nice if I could "re-instate" the loaded fonts once the page was complete.
On our project we identified that web fonts would revert after page load in Internet Explorer when we had the developer tools open. We still have to remind ourselves of this from time to time, but this is why you might see this odd behavior occur locally but not in production.
It definitely does not happen on every page load, but is more frequent when we manually refresh pages. We have not found documentation for this behavior but have experienced it on multiple computers when running IE 10 and especially IE 11.
I had the same problem of flash of styled content and for me, the cause was two-fold:
I had the font installed locally
I was using the wrong URL for the web-font
So before the webfont loaded, Explorer served up the local version. It then tried to load the font with an incorrect URL, which didn't work, which caused it to fall back to a standard sans-serif font.
I'm developing a website for someone but they want (insist) that the title be in a non-standard font. (The customer is always right.) I have the TrueType (.ttf) font but how do I bundle this with the website so that it uses it?
I tried putting it in the Images folder and tried to access it with the style sheet:
font-family:URL(Images/Arial_Rounded_MT_Bold.ttf)
But that didn't work. How do I include a non-standard font in a way which will render?
In case it's useful, this is an ASP.NET 2.0 site.
There is currently no standard way to do this. You could use #font-face, but it's not supported in all browsers. As Lance mentioned, this is a great place to find a support reference for the major browsers.
There is an effort to standardize this type of thing. The Web Open Font Format (WOFF) is such an effort. It looks like this may even be adopted by the major browsers in the future. We will have to wait and see.
For now, the best you can do is to reference your font like you normally would, but add a default (standard) font after that.
font-family: "Arial Rounded MT Bold", "Times New Roman", Serif
You have two options:
Create an image instead of using text
Use sifr to convert your text to the .ttf font
You have lots of options, none of them perfect. Smashing Magazine has a great article about rich fonts - most of them involve flash / image replacement.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/22/rich-typography-on-the-web-techniques-and-tools/
Convert your TrueType font into an Embedded OpenType font (it's easy!) so that you have two font files:
Arial_Rounded_MT_Bold.ttf
Arial_Rounded_MT_Bold.eot
Then make your CSS look like this:
#font-face {
font-family: 'Arial Rounded Bold';
src: url('Arial_Rounded_MT_Bold.eot');
}
#font-face {
font-family: 'Arial Rounded Bold';
src: url('Arial_Rounded_MT_Bold.ttf') format('truetype');
}
h1.title {
font-family: 'Arial Rounded Bold', serif;
}
Thanks to Internet Explorer, the EOT specification needs to be first, in a separate #font-face block and without the format attribute. More info here.
Enjoy!
There is a fair amount of activity on the subject of distributing fonts along with websites, but it's generally in the experimental stage, and won't work for the vast majority of browsers in use. In a few years you may be able to do this, but for the moment you would have to use an image or sIFR.