Communications of the ACM
Microsoft Sponsors New Web Font Standard
Credit: CNet
Microsoft has become a sponsor of a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) effort to standardize Web-based fonts with technology called the Web Open Font Format (WOFF). "Given the increasing interest in WOFF from browser implementers, tool creators, and type foundries, [it] is expected that WOFF will soon serve as that single, interoperable format and that other implementers will add support over time," says W3C's WebFonts Working Group.
WOFF is one of several technologies designed to improve typography on the Web. However, newer Web font technologies, such as the @font-face instruction set and Embedded OpenType, are inconsistently supported by browsers. WOFF attempts to address some typography problems, such as download size, by compression and by letting Web developers offer only the necessary subset of characters for a Web page rather than the entire font.
WOFF also accommodates metadata that can include type designer and licensing information to help protect intellectual property.
From CNet
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