Oh my gosh! Yet a another font format for the web? EOT for Internet Explorer. TTF/OTF for Safari & Opera. WOFF for Firefox 3.6 and now SVG fonts for Mobile Safari? Unfortunately, yes!

But what are SVG fonts anyway? Is this a good webfont format? Actually, it is not a webfont format at all. The purpose of SVG fonts is to be embedded inside of SVG documents (or linked to them), similar to the way you would embed standard TrueType or OpenType fonts in a PDF.

SVG fonts are text files that contain the glyph outlines represented as standard SVG elements and attributes, as if they were single vector objects in the SVG image. But this is also one of the biggest disadvantages of SVG fonts. While EOT, WOFF and PostScript-flavoured OpenType have compression built into the font format, SVG fonts are always uncompressed and usually pretty large. For example, our Graublau Sans Web fonts have just 61 KB as OpenType PS, but 172 KB converted to SVG.

This is how a SVG font (reduced to 2 glyphs) looks like

But there is more bad news: Since SVG fonts are just a collection of vector shapes, there is no way to store hinting information. Font foundries such as FSI have put a lot of effort into optimizing their Web FontFonts for small sizes on screen using elaborate TrueType hinting. But when you convert such a font to SVG all these information will be lost.

So, SVG fonts are not really an alternative to the other webfont formats. In 2008 Apple fueled the webfont revolution with the release of Safari 3.1 with support for webfonts in TrueType or OpenType format. It’s understandable that this support was deactivated in Mobile Safari for the iPhone. The screen is very small and the use of downloadable fonts hardly justifies the loading times and traffic costs of the webfonts. But this is now changing with the iPad. The resolution of the iPad in landscape mode is equal to the standard minimum resolution used for almost all websites today. The internet on the iPad is not a light version for mobile devices. So there shouln’t be any limitations either. Steve Jobs said in his iPad keynote:

»Those devices need to be far better than a laptop or the iPhone at some key task—things like browsing the web.«

But without support for real webfonts format such as WOFF and EOT, browsing the web with Mobile Safari is not really better. So I am really hoping that Apple will include true webfont formats in Mobile Safari—preferably WOFF which is also missing in Safari but has a good chance of becoming the webfont format in the near future.

The site about webfonts, but by default, no true webfonts supported on the iPad

If you want to use webfonts on the iPad today, you need to provide SVG fonts. To convert your fonts to SVG you can use applications such as FontForge or the @font-face generator from Font Squirrel. With the webfont services from Typekit and Typotheque you also get (experimental) SVG fonts support.

The Typekit homepage with experimental SVG fonts support

Linking SVG fonts in your website is similar to using any other webfont format. You just add another line to the @font-face rule in your CSS:

Note that the file name is followed by a hash tag. This relates to the font ID, which you will have to set while converting the font to SVG. The reason for this is, that multiple fonts can be embedded in a SVG document and therefore an identifier is required.

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Folder Type from Emilio Gomariz on Vimeo.

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For many years professional graphic designers are used to replace the Helvetica system fonts on the Mac OS with a Type1 version. But with Leopard this seems to be impossible. Whenever you delete the fonts, they will be reinstalled after you reboot the system and you will get a lot of annoying font conflicts.

I looked at several weblogs talking about this issue and they all make a lot of strange statements. So time to shed some light on this subject.

• Myth 1: It is necessary to replace the system’s Helvetica if you want to make professional printouts.

No! All system fonts on Mac OS X are “professional fonts”. In the early 90’s TrueType fonts could be a problem for some Raster Image Processors, but those days are long gone. Nowadays it really doesn’t matter if you use a font based on TrueType or PostScript outlines.

• Myth 2: You need to buy Helvetica LT Std.

One weblog, that was quoted all over the internet, claimed you need to buy Helvetica LT Std. Because it has a different font family name, you will not get any font conflicts. That’s true, but why should you buy a font you already have? In fact, the “Std” means you will only get a limited character set with this font, whereas Apple’s Helvetica supports a large number of languages.

The only reason for deleting the Helvetica fonts built into Leopard is if you need more styles. It wouldn’t be a good idea to mix some Helvetica TrueType styles from Apple with other PostScript styles from a different Foundry.

• Myth 3: You cannot delete the system’s Helvetica in Leopard.
  

Actually, you can! Just open this folder:

System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/
Versions/A/Frameworks/ATS.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ProtectedFonts/

This is the folder Leopard uses to reinstall the fonts. If you delete them here and in the system folder (system/library/fonts), the fonts will not be reinstalled. Warning: Mac OS X needs Helvetica! If you delete the Helvetica dfonts, make sure to install your own Helvetica. It needs to have the name “Helvetica” as font family name. No other name (like “Helvetica LT” or “Helvetica Neue”) will be a proper replacement.

• Mythos 1: Für’s professionelle Grafikdesign müssen die TrueType-Schriften von Mac OS X ersetzt werden.

Alle Systemschriften von Mac OS X sind »professionelle Schriften«. Die Zeiten, in denen TrueType-Fonts noch Probleme in der Druckvorstufe gemacht haben sind lange vorbei. Heute spielt es überhaupt keine Rolle mehr, ob man Fonts auf Basis von TrueType- oder PostScript-Outline wählt.

• Mythos 2: Man muss die Helvetica LT Std kaufen.

Ein Weblog, der unzählige Male zitiert wurde, erklärt, die einzige Möglichkeit das Problem zu lösen sei, die Helvetica LT Std zu kaufen. Da diese einen anderen Familiennamen besitzt, gibt es auch keine Fontkonflikte. Das ist natürlich richtig, aber warum sollte man einen Font kaufen, den man bereits besitzt? Hinzu kommt, dass der Zusatz »Std« schon darauf hindeutet, dass hier nur ein beschränkter Zeichensatz verfügbar ist. Apples Helvetica hingegen, unterstützt bereits von Hause aus deutlich mehr Sprachen.

Ein guter Grund, die System-Helvetica komplett zu ersetzen wäre allenfalls, wenn man weitere Schriftschnitte benötigt. Denn es ist kaum zu empfehlen, die TrueType-basierten Schnitte von Apple, mit PostScript-basierten Schnitten eines anderen Herstellers zu kombinieren.

• Mythos 3: Die System-Helvetica unter Mac OS X lässt sich nicht löschen.

Doch, es geht! Die Fonts, die Mac OS X zum Neuinstallieren der Fonts benutzt befinden sich in diesem Verzeichnis:

System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/
Versions/A/Frameworks/ATS.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ProtectedFonts/

Werden sie hier und im Systemfontverzeichnis (system/library/fonts) gelöscht, dann werden die Fonts auch nach dem Neustart des Systems nicht mehr neu installiert. Aber Vorsicht: Mac OS X braucht die Helvetica! Werden die Fonts wie hier gezeigt entfernt, muss sofort eine Ersatz-Helvetica installiert werden und sie muss den Familiennamen »Helvetica« haben. »Helvetica Neue« oder »Helvetica LT« reicht als Ersatz nicht aus!

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