Google Web Fonts

posted by Rob on November 17, 2011 10:16 AM

GoogleWebFonts.jpg

Snap! I see that Emma just pointed you towards Google Images' new feature. Now I'm wondering if y'all have seen the fonts available at Google Web Fonts.

You may or may not know that these days you can choose from thousands of fonts when you're putting a web page together. I mean, you could do that in the past, but unless your users also had those fonts installed they'd just end up seeing your site in one of the standard fonts we're all used to looking at on the web. But with HTML5 you can choose any old font you like and if your visitors don't have them installed your webpage can tell your browser how to secretly fetch them from somewhere like... Google Web Fonts.

But what surprised me was that you don't have to use those fonts in your web pages. I just downloaded a font to use in Illustrator. This one in fact: here's a bit of text that will appear in Stardos Stencil font if you're using an up-to-date browser and let's face it, why wouldn't you be? They're free after all.

The fonts at Google Web Fonts are all open-source and free (like it says here). So fill your boots. link

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Comments: 3


Thought you should know that in Google Reader (in an up-to-date browser), the relevant text appears to be the horrible, the dreaded, the ever most hideous Comic Sans MS.


Thanks, Katharine. In the CSS, I had to specify what kind of font Stardos Stencil is so that browsers know what to substitute if they can't download the correct typeface. Following Google's advice, I specified 'cursive' but that presumably causes Comic Sans to be the backup font on PCs. I'll change it so that it degrades to a monospace font so at least you should get Courier if the right font can't be found. If you get a chance, maybe you could hit refresh a coupla times to see what happens (which might also trigger a fetch of the correct font).


Upon refresh, I got Courier. I actually thought there was a chance you did Comic Sans on purpose, to convince everyone reading to upgrade their browsers.

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