Web “Safer” Font & Your Options
This is one of those “a client always asks, so I might as well document it for quick reference” topics. One of the most frustrating issues for people coming from the physical print and desktop environment to the web is the limitations of fonts. The long story involves licenses, ownership and platform issues. The short answers is that out of the thousands and thousands of fonts in the world, only a relatively few are present on MOST computers and are viewable reliably by guests to a site.
There are some techniques for bringing more fonts to the web experience from using simple graphics for high-impact parts of a site (logos, diagrams, etc) to technical ones like Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR), but they have some serious drawbacks and limitations. So, until CSS3 and HTML5 descend like the tooth fairy to solve all our web font issues, here is the state of things at the moment.
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Originally published at Cafe Arcane. Please leave any comments there.