Web Open Font Format Gets Backing From Mozilla

A new format specification has reached consensus among web and type designers and is being backed by Mozilla. Dubbed Web Open Font Format (WOFF), it is an effort to bring advanced typography to the Web in a much better way. Support for the new spec will be included as a part of Firefox 3.6 which just recently hit beta. "WOFF combines the work Leming and Blokland had done on embedding a variety of useful font metadata with the font resource compression that Kew had developed. The end result is a format that includes optimized compression that reduces the download time needed to load font resources while incorporating information about the font's origin and licensing. The format doesn't include any encryption or DRM, so it should be universally accepted by browser vendors — this should also qualify it for adoption by the W3C."

Comments

Easier fonts means a lot!

[SlappyBastard]

For example, just imagine a world where every website can easily implement Comic Sans, even if the end user has uninstalled the font.

Re:Easier fonts means a lot!

[syousef]

For example, just imagine a world where every website can easily implement Comic Sans, even if the end user has uninstalled the font.

Unfortunately I think most web sites will standardise on Windings.

Re:Easier fonts means a lot!

[maxume]

I actually already had that unchecked; I was remembering poorly. The real tricky attack is to use onmousedown to swap out the link, something like this:

<a href="http://www.example.com" onmousedown="this.href=buildlink(...)">link</a>