Behind every good website the main reason of its success is the effective use of typography and fonts. That helps in provision of good readability of content that is delivered through website.If you are a developer or designer the Fonts play a vital role as it helps in clearly delivering the message to the end user.This article provides the quick guide for CSS3 Webfonts and other mostly employed Font Formats.
Major Font Formats for CSS3
TrueType Fonts (TTF)
TrueType is a font standard developed in the late 1980s, by Apple and Microsoft. TrueType is the most common font format for both the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
OpenType Fonts (OTF)
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on TrueType, and is a registered trademark of Microsoft. OpenType fonts are used commonly today on the major computer platforms.
The Web Open Font Format (WOFF)
WOFF is a font format for use in web pages. It was developed in 2009, and is now a W3C Recommendation. WOFF is essentially OpenType or TrueType with compression and additional metadata. The goal is to support font distribution from a server to a client over a network with bandwidth constraints.
SVG Fonts/Shapes
SVG fonts allow SVG to be used as glyphs when displaying text. The SVG 1.1 specification define a font module that allows the creation of fonts within an SVG document. You can also apply CSS to SVG documents, and the @font-face rule can be applied to text in SVG documents.
Embedded OpenType Fonts (EOT)
EOT fonts are a compact form of OpenType fonts designed by Microsoft for use as embedded fonts on web pages.
In the CSS3 @font-face rule you must first define a name for the font (e.g. myFirstFont), and then point to the font file.
Tip: Always use lowercase letters for the font URL. Uppercase letters can give unexpected results in IE.
To use the font for an HTML element, reference is to be made to the name of the font (mycustomFont) through the font-family property.