Web Font Optimizer
Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 5:27 pmI thought it'd be interesting to play around with web fonts a bit, so I've set up a Web Font Optimizer service.
The idea is that TTF files are often too large to be practically used on a site, and often you only want enough of the font to render a few headings. So the service generates subsetted fonts, removing everything except what's needed for the desired characters. It tries to preserve as much relevant data as possible - kerning, ligatures, glyph positioning information, etc - so the result should look identical to the original font. It also automatically generates EOT files so you can use the same font in Internet Explorer. Most of the relevant code is available on the site.
This is all pretty experimental, but I've tested it a fair amount and it seems to work in the four main browsers on the three main OSes so I currently consider it reasonably stable. I'm not sure how much I'll work on this in the future, but I'll probably make at least a few modifications at some point, so I'd be interested in any feedback on bugs, feature suggestions, whether you find it useful or pointless, whether someone else has already implemented exactly the same service, etc. Thanks!
The idea is that TTF files are often too large to be practically used on a site, and often you only want enough of the font to render a few headings. So the service generates subsetted fonts, removing everything except what's needed for the desired characters. It tries to preserve as much relevant data as possible - kerning, ligatures, glyph positioning information, etc - so the result should look identical to the original font. It also automatically generates EOT files so you can use the same font in Internet Explorer. Most of the relevant code is available on the site.
This is all pretty experimental, but I've tested it a fair amount and it seems to work in the four main browsers on the three main OSes so I currently consider it reasonably stable. I'm not sure how much I'll work on this in the future, but I'll probably make at least a few modifications at some point, so I'd be interested in any feedback on bugs, feature suggestions, whether you find it useful or pointless, whether someone else has already implemented exactly the same service, etc. Thanks!