Behind the Fonts: EOT Lite and WebOTF Formats
In early August, there was every reason to believe that the future of typography on the Web was subject to a quick and ruthless choice between two incompatible extremes:
At this point, commercial slogans came up with the idea of a “garden fence” (this capacious metaphor was invented by Vlad Levantovsky from the Monotype, and became known in the retelling of Richard Fink ), that is, they wanted to have such a font format that might not be too much to prevent a purposeful “pirate” ”, However, it still does not allow to download and install the“ network ”font to your system directly and directly - which means that it will indicate to the law-abiding (that is, copyrighted) user that this cannot be done.
There are two such formats - EOT Lite and WebOTF. And even developed a special patch for Firefox , which adds support for both of them to the browser.
')
The EOT Lite format is supported by the large font trading corporation Ascender, which for advertising purposes has produced some funny similarity to the beer label:
![[EOT Lite]](https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/f7d/860/7cb/f7d8607cb9e8d4316b2a6200ae6b974e.png)
More importantly, Ascender plans to sell many of its fonts in this format (as well as some others).
The EOT Lite format has a noticeable, significant advantage: it is a subset of the old Maycrosoft EOT, resulting in a rejection of both the hard binding to the domain and the proprietary font compression algorithm. Consequently, this format — let it take shape only this year, and relatively recently — was nevertheless supported by Microsoft Corporation along time ago, starting with Internet Explorer 4. So, this format will work smoothly in all current versions of the most popular (Microsoft) browser . And the aforementioned Firefox patch will no doubt provide support for EOT Lite in future versions of the second most popular browser. Therefore, I agree with the opinion that Paul Irish expressed in his detailed detailed analysis of the current situation with web fonts: it is EOT Lite that now seems to be the best choice for the format of proprietary fonts for the Web.
And the WebOTF format is the result of the merger of two relatively new proposals (ZOT for compression and .webfont for metadata). Therefore, the WebOTF format assumes the conversion of the.OTF file by the method of separate compression of each font table by passing it through the compress2 () function from the zlib library. Accordingly, compression saves traffic; and it will save even more if the browser does not need every table, since then it will be able to selectively download them from the server: the size and position (offset) of the tables are contained in the WebOTF header. XML metadata about rights is also added to the end of the file (although enforcement of the restrictions specified therein is not provided), as well as some binary data (which traffickers can mark the file for further identification of the buyer by file, for example). Many traders tend therefore to support this format with great readiness ; However, the lack of broad browser support makes his future very bleak, I think. Without perspective.
However, I will end on a joyful note, and even, if you will, a practically useful note. The aforementioned Paul Irish invented a brief javascript to find out if there is support for @ font-face in the browser. To whom it is necessary, enjoy.
- On the one hand, the implemented in Firefox and Opera browsers (and in the near future also in Chrome) are uncovered TTF and OTF formats, which are great for distributing free or at least free fonts , but which cause any trader to be horrified and stupefied , as they allow with a slight wave of the hand to download any such font and put it into the system unhindered. Accordingly, such formats are not suitable for laying out proprietary commercial fonts.
- On the other hand, EOT (Embedded OpenType) format, understood in Internet Explorer, with a proprietary compression mechanism,
with DRM fields for binding a font to one and only one Internet domain, on sites outside of which the font should not be used at all. Accordingly, the excellent protection of the so-called intellectual property, but the wildest problems with the licensing of technologyand its cross-platform portability.
At this point, commercial slogans came up with the idea of a “garden fence” (this capacious metaphor was invented by Vlad Levantovsky from the Monotype, and became known in the retelling of Richard Fink ), that is, they wanted to have such a font format that might not be too much to prevent a purposeful “pirate” ”, However, it still does not allow to download and install the“ network ”font to your system directly and directly - which means that it will indicate to the law-abiding (that is, copyrighted) user that this cannot be done.
There are two such formats - EOT Lite and WebOTF. And even developed a special patch for Firefox , which adds support for both of them to the browser.
')
The EOT Lite format is supported by the large font trading corporation Ascender, which for advertising purposes has produced some funny similarity to the beer label:
More importantly, Ascender plans to sell many of its fonts in this format (as well as some others).
The EOT Lite format has a noticeable, significant advantage: it is a subset of the old Maycrosoft EOT, resulting in a rejection of both the hard binding to the domain and the proprietary font compression algorithm. Consequently, this format — let it take shape only this year, and relatively recently — was nevertheless supported by Microsoft Corporation a
And the WebOTF format is the result of the merger of two relatively new proposals (ZOT for compression and .webfont for metadata). Therefore, the WebOTF format assumes the conversion of the
However, I will end on a joyful note, and even, if you will, a practically useful note. The aforementioned Paul Irish invented a brief javascript to find out if there is support for @ font-face in the browser. To whom it is necessary, enjoy.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/67795/
All Articles