[thelist] font questions

[Robert O'Rourke]

Nan Harbison wrote:
> Hi All,
>  
> The graphics artist that designed a website I am building specified Din as
> the heading and all subheading fonts, Din Light, DIn Medium and Din Bold. I
> didn't have this font on my computer, so I had to purchase it - I purchased
> the package she directed me to, but I still don't have the light and medium,
> only a bunch of others, like Din RegularAlternative, etc.The graphics artist
> thinks people do have these fonts on their computers.
>  
> I am pretty sure that if a website specifies a font, and the computer
> viewing the page doesn't have this font, it displays as some default font,
> like Times New Roman. Is that correct?
>  
> Second question, do you think most computers come with these fonts? My
> husband checked at his office, 75 computers and none have these fonts.If
> not, is there a way to embed the font in a website without having to create
> graphics as the headers for every page so they will display as Din? (I
> didn't include this in my price!!!).
>  
> I have told the artist that I prefer to use as much text as possible, not
> graphics, because it is easier to make changes to the text and it loads
> faster. She doesn't think that would be a problem, but she has been pretty
> clueless about other web-related issues. 
>  
> Thanks!
>  
> Nan
>  
>   

Hiya,

    You can't rely on that font being on anyone's computer, I've never 
even heard of it till now. It's best to find a similar common font then 
in the CSS do something like:

    body { font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;  }

The website will render with the first available font in that list back 
to the user's default sans-serif font. Even if the user has Din 
installed it might not look too good in a web browser.

You can either quote your client for the headings or look into something 
like sIFR, it uses flash to replace headings with nicely anti-aliased 
custom fonts while maintaining accessibility.

http://www.mikeindustries.com/sifr

It will still take some time to implement though...

As a reference for yourself (and pass it on to the designer too) this 
site lists the most reliable fonts to use for regular website text: 
http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html

Rob