CassieNet News :: Microsoft WEFT - Online Dynamic Font Repository (from ie chat)

Microsoft WEFT - Online Dynamic Font Repository (from ie chat)

This came up briefly at the IE chat today:
MS Web Embedded Font Technology (WEFT) is a really cool tool that almost no one seems to know about or use. Basically - so long as you have the fonts installed - it creates .eot files of the fonts you used so they are viewable by anyone online - even without the fonts installed

For a quick example - i used the fonts VGA Rounded and Geometr706 Md BT on my website:
www.jgrant.com/grin

*here is a copy paste - not sure if it will work:

VGA Rounded Geometr 706.

Anyway - you shouldnt need those 2 fonts installed in order to see them.

When i first tried this - i couldnt believe it. How many sites only use arial,verd, tahoma, times, impact,comic sans trebuchet etc only - when in reality the whole web could be a typography heaven.

At the ie meeting i was informed it would be hard to do because of copyright issues surrounding the fonts in question.

What i wanted to re-iterate though was the idea of re-creating the most popular of all typefaces - much like Corel did to Adobe in the TTF / ATM wars. Sure they wernt as "crisp" but they looked the same and were free.

What if - MS paid a team of designers to "clean room" design at least 100 of the most popular fonts - rename them - and make them part of an online DB of fonts that work with IE ( and IE ONLY)

So Futura Bold might = Microsoft Future Bold in DB
( user just uses Futura - IE would determine font matching to MS font)

I think opening up the world of type to the masses - especially with the advent of CSS would not only be noble, but also a killer feature for IE.

In regards to the WEFT tool itself - that should be better integrated with frontpage as well. So instead of opening weft - and answering the wizards complicated questions about "what directories you want to "allow" to have the fonts in - FP could just see what fonts your using - budle up all the .eot files - and add the requesite <style embed etc> tags into the document.

If it REALLY really is neccesary to know the server for copywrite issues - try to make it easier to specify than it is now.
*FP would know where youre publishing too correct?

Hey Bill Hill (typography guru) what do you think? :)

ps - worst case scenario: how about a new Font pack with even 20 new fonts - ideally installed through winupdate

For the full story see:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=31760#31760
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