Web Safe Fonts – Part 4

Rachel Rodriguez. – LA, California
123Triad: Web Design & SEO Company

Web Safe Fonts – Part 4

In this article I continue discussing web safe fonts.
Can one use other fonts in other cases?
The answer to this is obviously yes. There are usually some exceptions to the “always use Web safe fonts” rule. Sometimes as a result of circumstances out of ones control, one simply must use a font which is not considered Web safe. A client, take an example, may have a business which has used a similar font for their company’s trademarks, signs, and logos for more than a century. Bringing a business similar to that to the Web without having to lose its long-standing brand recognition and integrity would likely be impossible with a font that is Web safe.
Or, perhaps one, as a designer, wants to experiment with design as well as take things to the bleeding edge. I’ve always had a belief that real artistry and experimentation lies in the artist’s ability to see far beyond the normal scope and also step away from standard practices. If one shares this idea, then undoubtedly at some point he is going to look for ways to tinker with fonts that are not Web-safe in his pages.
Here are the best ways for one to use non-Web-safe fonts in his page, and still have them render properly on most other computers.
One should Provide downloads for his users
If one wants to use a very specific font for his site, one can include a link to the font file on his page. In this way, visitors can download as well as install the font, then visit his page and see the font that is rendered properly having no real drawbacks.
This is too much work for one to expect the visitor to do, though, just to view ones site as he wants them to see it. The visitor does not usually want to do anything very special only to view a Webpage. To require that someone should go through the trouble of downloading as well as installing a font only to view ones site is a great way to chase visitors. Odds are that, most of ones visitors would not even know where to start installing the font, anyway.
There are as well some potential legal issues if one takes this route. If one is not the person who created the font, then it very likely he does not have the legal rights of distributing it.
As a result of these major flaws, this method has been widely avoided.
One should use images
When one uses an image editor such as Photoshop, GIMP, or MS Paint, one can create images which use any font he likes. If one puts the image on his page, it will look just the same on a web visitor’s computer as it does on his.

Whether one, as the site’s visitor, is on a Mac, a Windows PC, in his favorite flavor of Linux, or even just surfing on something else such as a PDA or iPhone, the fonts do show up properly. This is usually true even if ones PC does not have these fonts installed.
This is a very great way to display any font one likes for his logo, advertisements, or some of his headers. However, one cannot rely on images for the content that is actual. A web visitor cannot highlight text using the mouse, implying that if they want to copy and paste ones text somewhere (say, to send ones business name to his friend), they cannot do it. Also, text which is in images cannot be read by screen readers, that some handicapped people do use it to browse the web. Any text one has in his images will not be usually accessible to these people. In addition, some people do browse with images being turned off or have their images being blocked by a third party; an example is like in some corporate offices which use a proxy server. At last, search engines cannot read properly as well as catalogue text within images.
All in all, any text one uses in his images should primarily serve a purposeful decoration. There is although an alternative: one should use an image replacement technique.

123Triad webdesign offers affordable custom website design. Our full service website design company only hires certified website designers. Please contact us today on 1-800-720-0816 for your next web site design project.

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