I use Cufon to display non-system/non-standard fonts. Typically no more than one or two per page. Cufon works...about 99% of the time. Periodically I load a page and see ugly bitmaps. Then later it works fine. No code change underneath - I've also seen the same thing at other sites (that I don't design). Big companies, too. From some research, it sounds like this is browser bugs. I'm guessing something doesn't work correctly in the javascript rendering and so you get the fall-back or default fonts. Again, it's not common...but I worry about the impression it makes when a new visitor comes and sees an ugly site. Is there an alternative to Cufon that is more 100%? Other than limiting myself to the global fonts only... Thank you in advance, DP brain trust!
Cufon? REALLY, what is this 2001? Webfonts as a whole are a massive waste of bandwidth and accessibility RUBBISH, but to hear that anyone is still chosing something like CuFon or SiFR is mind-blowing. Google fonts is a cute alternative that leverages IE 5.5 style fonts, oh, I'm sorry, I mean CSS3. (laugh), but I dislike relying on off-site services for things like that, you are limited to what they make available, and it relies on browser sniffing to determine what to send your for files -- and browser sniffing ALWAYS breaks sooner or later. (see all the faulty browser sniffing crap that saw IE7 as IE4, Opera 10 as Opera 1.0, and Safari as yahoo's slurp bot) I would suggest using font-squirrel instead, they have a library of pre-built royalty free fonts, AND they have a font-conversion systems to let you upload a ttf and turn it into all the different file formats needed to support IE 5 right up to modern browsers... and it does so using CSS3, which is to say how IE has handled it since 1998. Main Site: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/ Generator tool: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/tools/webfont-generator When you use the generator or grab one of their pre-builts, it gives you a zipped download that even includes pre-built CSS and a demo HTML showing that your font does indeed work as advertised. It makes all the needed formats for all the different user agents, since like most things HTML 5 or CSS3, none of the browser makers can agree on any one format and each use it as an opportunity to try and lock you into their favorite pet formats. A laugh how tricking people into thinking they are fighting the market trend of one vendors product (flash) is driven by vendor lock-in... See the DISASTER that is HTML 5 VIDEO for the pinnacle of this stupidity in action. Though keep in mind you should use webfonts with an eyedropper -- the filesize of just one average font is by themselves HALF my ideal target size for an entire template of HTML+CSS+IMAGES+SCRIPTS, many fonts have legibility or rendering issues across platforms causing accessibility issues -- so don't go slapping them on flow content or anything important enough people might actually want to read it. This is really true of a lot of 'skinny' fonts, as when combined with anti-aliasing and color-hinting it decreases the legibility contrast below the color values you actually declare! Remember, just because it looks good to YOU doesn't mean it's useful to anyone else... that's why we have core fonts, color contrast guidelines, sizing guidelines, etc, etc... Because again, no matter how pretty it is, if it's useless to the end user what good is it?