We have recently launched a humble website, powered by Wordpress. And now, some of our users complain that certain Swedish special characters do not display properly. As far as I know, this has only happened on Android, but regardless of broswer. But I have been unable to reproduce this on my desktop PC as well as my Android device (both 4.2 and 4.4).
I have tried to set the first line of the CSS editor to:
#charset "UTF-8";
But can't verify that this works. Any tips on how I reproduce this?
And should I look into other alternatives, instead of the CSS editor? When I view the source of the start page, I see the following in the header:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
In case the question is more easily answered through a visit, the site is http://www.slutet.nu
UTF-8 is not the problem, the font Open Sans is it. The character sub-set you use doesn’t contain all needed glyphs, so the browser has to get the missing glyphs from other fonts. Android and some older desktop browsers aren’t very good with glyph substitution, so that might fail.
Remove Open Sans, use a system font, and you are fine. Or use an extended set of Open Sans, which contains all needed glyphs. This will never be complete, because you cannot know which fonts are needed for an automatic translation.
Related
I know this is an extremely basic and stupid question, but I seem to be having a genuinely curious problem.
When using what are supposed to be web-safe fonts like Didot, and using
header h1{
font-family: Didot, serif;
font-size: 36px;
}
my browser just displays the standard serif font.
In fact I can't seem to get it to display any web safe font, it will only display either the standard serif or sans-serif font. I know my selector is correct because I CAN change between serif and sans-serif, but I know its not displaying other web-safe fonts because I tried both Arial and Helvetica (which are both definitely web safe) and when I refreshed from one to another there was absolutely no difference in the font displayed.
I'm a complete beginner and I'm using the simplest possible beginner environment, just an html page linking to a css file which I'm opening with my browser (the url shows up as file:///C:/Users/Agent%201/Desktop/Web%20Projects/ResumeSite/index.html if that is at all relevant). I've tried opening it with both chrome and edge, same results on both
Is there something wrong with my css? Or are there limitations when just opening a local html file with my browser?
Sorry if I'm this is a really dumb question, but I really can't find an answer as to why my fonts aren't working, I've tried !important and some other weird solution I found which involves changing the selector to "header h1, header h1 *" and that did nothing.
Thank-you for any help you can provide me!
When using what are supposed to be web-safe fonts like Didot, and using...
Didot is not a "web-safe" font.
Didot is included with macOS, which may lead some web-designers to assume that it's also available on other platforms (like Windows, Linux and Android) or that those platforms have automatically-mapped equivalents (like how many browsers will map Helvetica to Arial), however that is not guaranteed.
Also, just because a typeface is included with an OS does not mean it is licensed to you to use commercially or in a website - you can be sued for publishing an OS-licensed font onto the public web without having your own font-license.
A "web-safe" font is a typeface that is broadly installed and supported by most contemporary browsers without the need for additional downloads or font installations.
Many typefaces are broadly installed, such as Microsoft's Core fonts for the web which are preinstalled on all Windows computers - and many other operating systems such as macOS either come with the same fonts or have very similar equivalents (e.g. Helvetica instead of Arial) which are automatically mapped by the browser.
The only way to determine if a font is "web-safe" is by doing your own leg-work and manually checking to see if all-or-most of your target users' devices have that typeface available. You can check font availability on Wikipedia and other sites:
macOS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typefaces_included_with_macOS
Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typefaces_included_with_Microsoft_Windows
iOS: http://iosfonts.com/
Android: Consult Android's fonts.xml for the minimum set of stock fonts and default fallback mappings (e.g. "Helvetica" goes to "sans-serif").
You might notice that Android's font list is very... short. That's because the base Android OS isn't what ships on most peoples' phones: Google's layer on top of Android, and OEMs (like Samsung, etc) will add their own fonts on top, but I don't know where to get that list from at-present, sorry.
A "web-safe font stack" means that at least one of the fonts listed in a font-family property value can be safely assumed to be available for use, not that all of them are - nor that the first-preferred-font will be available.
And any font-family list can be made "safe" by adding a CSS fallback generic-family name to the end (i.e. specifying the least-preferred font). Those names are specified in the CSS Fonts Module and are:
serif
sans-serif
cursive
fantasy
monospace
In your case, the property font: Didot, serif is "web-safe" because it has the serif generic-family name at the end. Your visitors will only see the Didot font being used if they already have it installed on their computer, phone, tablet, etc.
If you do want to use Didot, then you need to publish it as a WOFF file and add it to your stylesheet with a #font-face rule: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/using-font-face/
I'm working on a website where the users will be printing pages from the site fairly frequently, in order to give them to people without internet access. Some of the text comes out garbled when printed on our users' office printers:
That's supposed to say Reduced Fare and Free Ride Programs, Chicago Transit Authority.
My first thought was that this has something to do with the font we're using, so I changed that text to have font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif. Some google research made me think those font settings were widely supported and shouldn't cause problems, but our users are still having the issue.
Even if you don't know exactly how to fix this problem, I would appreciate suggestions about
What other than the font selection could be causing it?
If you do think it has something to do with the font, what is a good font to use? Or how could I figure that out, is it printer-specific?
Update
The page is being printed from the browser, which for this particular group of users is IE8. I'm not sure what version of Windows they're on. I've tested this on a Windows machine with IE8 in our office, and was not able to reproduce the issue. So while the browser might be a factor, I don't believe it's the only factor.
Second Update
The font we're using is Libre Baskerville, which we're loading through the Google Fonts API. It renders fine on screen, and actually prints with no issue from some of the printers at our client's office. The text only comes out garbled when printed on a Lexmark MS410dn.
I saw these same types of printing errors. I created a PDF in Indesign on Windows 10 using the Libre Baskerville font. When I tried to print the PDF on OSX using Preview I got the same garbled glyphs seen above. I fixed it by uninstalling the Libre Baskerville fonts which were Truetype format and installing Libre Baskerville fonts in Opentype format and resetting the fonts in the document. It seemed to work.
In the end the simplest solution was to use a different font for printing. The issue only happened with the Libre Baskerville font on a few specific printers, so in our print.css stylesheet we just use a basic serif font instead. Not ideal, but at least the printouts are legible.
In the original post I said that I had tried switching the font in the printouts and users were still having problems. This turned out to be due to caching of the print.css stylesheet, so that fix actually did solve the problem.
In the long term we'll probably find a font that works consistently on all their printers and switch the website over to that as well.
For the record (and anyone reading this with a similar issue), I had exactly the same issue trying to print a document written in Libre Baskerville on my laptop, in LibreOffice. The font is embedded in both RTF and PDF formats and the text is garbled in the same way. I also worked around the issue by changing to a different font. It's a pity as LibreBaskerville is a nice font.
Try replacing the True Type version of the font with the Open Type version - I am now able to print Libre Baskerville with no issues. The Open Type version is not easy to find as most downloads (including Google Fonts) only give you the option of a .ttf file. Search for a .otf file version - I found one here: https://www.broble.com/download-free-font/libre-baskerville
It might be that the imported font files have some errors in them. Sometimes, if you use a online font to webfont converter it makes some mistakes with the conversion. You could try Google Fonts. Find a serif font that you like and use their files and import scripts.
For example, if you want to use the font Bitter:
Just put #import url(http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Bitter); at the top of your CSS file
Use font-family: 'Bitter', serif; in your style declarations.
NB: The serif part is a fallback in case something goes wrong, then the clients browser chooses the default serif font instead.
I have been searching for hours, asked friends and it didn't work out. So I hope you guys can help me. My website uses a custom font, but IE(10) doesn't support that on the way I do it. I have no idea it supports other methods. Here is mine:
#font-face { font-family: shardee; src:url('fonts/Shardee.ttf'); }
It is not necessary to have a custom font in Internet Explorer, but it would be nice.
When Internet Explorer doesn't know the font, it used its default font. But the problem is, that the font-size of the custom font is perfect, but of the Internet Explorer default font it is way too big. I tried to fix it with a IE specific css code, but it just doesn't work at all. I am using the following css code for Interner Explorer:
<!--[if IE]>
<style>
#menu ul li{ font-size:15px; }
</style>
<![endif]-->
I have also tried it by a external stylesheet, which looked like this:
<!--[if IE]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php echo get_stylesheet_directory_uri() ?>/style/ie.css" />
<![endif]-->
The function I use in the php is a wordpress function that takes you to the path of your website. If you are not using wordpress, you can forget that code and leave it blank.
The problem is not the path, the path is correct. I have looked into the source code in the browser, and it showed me the code I have in ie.css. The code in ie.css is exactly the same as above, but without the tags ect.
I hope you guys can help me with this problem. 2 solutions are possible as far as I know. Let the ie specific css work, or show me a way to create custom fonts in IE. I am using Internet Explorer version 10.
You can see the site here, but once it is fixed it will disappear because I don't need to put it on a subdomain once it is fixed.
Kind regards,
Bart Roelofs
Multiple font formats
To support a wide range of browsers, use a .ttf, .woff and .eot version of the font.
#font-face {
font-family: 'shardee';
src: url('fonts/Shardee.eot');
src: url('fonts/Shardee.eot?#iefix')
format('embedded-opentype'),
url('fonts/Shardee.woff') format('woff'),
url('fonts/Shardee.ttf') format('truetype');
}
You can use a Font conversion website like Font Squirrel, to convert the .ttf font into .woff and .eot.
DRM false positive
As #Jukka pointed out, there's a legal issue with the TTF file that's preventing it from being usable in Windows. In the IE developer console, the following error message is displayed :
CSS3114: #font-face failed OpenType embedding permission check.
Permission must be Installable.
Shardee appears to be an abandoned font with an unknown license type. Although it may be legal to use this font, Windows seems to require that every TTF file has DRM info that explicitly says it's legal to embed it in web pages. The error in IE is most likely a false positive.
To test this, I took a TTF font that's known to be legally licensed for use on websites. The TTF version didn't work in IE because of the DRM error. This example is definitely a false positive. This is one of the reasons why it's necessary to use multiple font formats, and why a single format like TTF will not work on all browsers.
Although Windows doesn't allow IE to use the TTF file, IE can still use the WOFF or EOT version. When I tested the above #font-face rule on a local webserver, using all three font formats, the Shardee font rendered correctly in all versions of IE (though with an error message in the IE developer console).
Steps to try:
Convert the .ttf file to .woff and .eot
Upload the .woff and .eot files to the same directory as the existing .ttf file.
Replace the #font-face rule with the one above. I fixed a couple typos in the initial version of it.
If you still have a problem, there may be an issue with the web server settings. Related question: IE9 blocks download of cross-origin web font
IE11:
If you are receiving the CSS3114 error code in dev tools, you need to modify the first bits of the font file. This will allow IE to install the font.
Npm Module:
You can use ttembed-js npm module, which will make the modifications for you.
https://www.npmjs.com/package/ttembed-js
Usage: ttembed-js path/to/Shardee.ttf
By searching the web, I found this online tool that performs a fix on the TTF font, making it displayable by Explorer:
https://www.andrebacklund.com/fontfixer.html
So the problem is apparently that on IE 10, the menu, inside the element with id=menu, does not appear in the declared font “shardee” but in the browser default font. This actually makes the menu readable. But technically, the explanation can be seen in Developer Tools (press F12 to enter them), in the Console pane. The error message, with code CSS3114, tells that #font-face did not pass the checks for usage rights for embedding.
Check out the usage rights of the font, and contact the copyright holder (which is to be presumed to be Bright Ideas) for obtaining the rights if possible.
FontPrep is an excellent Web Font Generator for the Mac OS X. it will even create a fonts.css
I ran into this same issue and ran F12. It seems compatibility view was enabled in IE10 for the site I was on. Once I disabled compatibility view the custom font displayed. Hope this helps someone...
Does any one know why some of my font families won't render on some mobile devices? Here's a page that demonstrates the fonts:
http://jl.evermight.com/font/
The fonts render properly on desktop chrome browser, ipad and iphone.
But when i view that page on my galaxy note, the Have A Nice Day font renders as something that looks like arial. On my friends nexus 4, Have a nice day works fine, but the universe condense renders as something that looks like arial.
Does anyone know why?
I've attached screenshot of what the fonts should look like
Additional notes
some people claim Have a nice day is not working in Firefox or IE10. For me, the font works on Firefox. I don't have IE10, so unable to verify.
How do I make this font work on my android?
Additional Notes
I had a typing mistake in my link path to my css files. I've corrected it now. But the problem still appears in my droid browser.
Just tried out the link on my phone - HTC 8s, everything seemed to work fine. Below is the screenshot for the same.
ON HTC 8S
ON IE 10
It's possible it's a downloading issue. The fonts listed in your declaration should work across most browsers (just make sure you're not in Opera Mini, it doesn't really support much of anything).
Additionally, Have a Nice Day is loaded through #font-face declarations in the CSS file, but the others appear to be loaded from the JavaScript, which might be part of the issue. Droid Sans is on Android phones by default, so they're likely just pulling them locally, which is why they work across the board on Android. From there, it might be a difference of JavaScript support (if Universe doesn't work, JS isn't turned on, for example).
Another thing that might help is opening up developer tools in a desktop browser that isn't working (in the case of Firefox, you'll want to pick up the Firebug extension). Check the "Net" or "Network" tab and see if your font files are getting downloaded.
If that still doesn't work, try playing around with the order of the font files in the declaration. I've seen browsers take issue with the order.
Also, the Droid Serif fonts are available from Google Web Fonts, which works cross browser with little headache. It might be worth seeing if your other fonts (or something close) are there, too, and just use Google's Web Font Loader to load your fonts.
The problem has been fixed. Apparently there was a bug on myfonts.com that corrupted my font files. I contacted myfonts.com and they corrected the issue right away. Then re-sent me the font files. Now everything works perfectly.
The guys at myfonts.com are amazing. Very good customer + tech support services.
Below is a link to how I do my #fontfaces for cross browser compatibility.
Cross Browser Fontface
i want to add pretty fonts to my Bootstrap site. i'm a programmer, not a designer.
I googled around and ended up at Google Webfonts website. Google's own font browser does not work (all the fonts default to a serif or something) for any of my browsers (OSX Chrome, OSX Safari, Win7 Chrome, Win7 IE9), all the fonts show up the same.
why doesn't google's webfont broswer work for me? http://www.google.com/webfonts
how can i trust them to work for everyone else
what is the bulletproof way to use custom
fonts?
to i have to buy them and host them myself? is this a bad idea?
Web fonts are fonts that have been licensed specifically for web-use. Besides Google Webfonts, there are other font sites that offer free (and legal) fonts for use on the web like Font Squirrel (free), and Typekit (mostly a paid service). Font Squirrel has a lot of fonts with #face kits that can help end the "browser blues", and make it easy to host the fonts on your own server (my preference).
There's a good article on A List Apart that will help you a bunch - have a read
BTW - it's a violation of your font license to take a font from your computer and run it through a true-type converter (for use on the web)...unless you've purchased/established licensing for web-use via the font provider/manufacturer/creator, etc.
But i used them a couple of times so thought of sharing with you guys. I am just answering for How to use them?
For ex:
When you use a particular web font Archivo then you need to include its style sheet as follows
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Archivo+Narrow' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
In other way you need to install the fonts API so that you dont need to make a online request every single time.
They should be supported by most of the modern browsers.
Can't guess the reason for the first question.
Google web-fonts will work with every browser and I'm sure it is working. There are some issues.
** Fonts will be not smooth or fonts will be jugged in some browsers such as IE. Also fonts are not clear some times (Some fonts). You have to use CSS shadows ..etc to fix this.
You can use your own web-fonts. Download font and convert it to .ttf, .svg, .eot and .woff and call them in CSS with #font-face
You don't have to buy them if you are using like above example. But you will have to buy the font if it is commercial.
** You can use cufon.js too.