
Google Code Blog: Introducing the Google Font API & Google Font Directory - boundlessdreamz
http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/05/introducing-google-font-api-google-font.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FDcni+%28Google+Code+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
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TimothyFitz
Unfortunately their blog's "example" is just a static image (what are they
thinking?). If you want to actually see samples of what the fonts look like go
directly to the Font Directory: <http://code.google.com/webfonts>

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ilike
As the article mentioned, you can see the implementation in wild here:
<http://www.smashingmagazine.com/>

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aw3c2
You linked to a homepage but I guess you meant to post a specific URL.

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zweben
No, the article headlines use it.

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aw3c2
Ah, I did not notice it. Thanks for the clarification.

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sil3ntmac
Kilimanjaro called it yesterday :)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1357578>

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Kilimanjaro
Thanks google, love ya guys ;-)

Now, what would be the benefit of calling:

    
    
      http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Inconsolata
    

which in turn serves the css that contains the real call to the font:

    
    
      @font-face { font-family: 'Inconsolata'; 
      src: url('http://themes.googleusercontent.com/font?kit=J_eeEGgHN8Gk3Eud0dz8jw') 
      format('truetype'); }
    

So, why two trips, instead of just one?

What I'd do is just call the font directly and teach developers to use @font-
face

And shrink the url a bit:

    
    
      http://fonts.googleapis.com/Inconsolata
    

Remember, once it gets widespread use it would be harder to change a single
char

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sosuke
It is important to note as well that
[http://themes.googleusercontent.com/font?kit=J_eeEGgHN8Gk3Eu...](http://themes.googleusercontent.com/font?kit=J_eeEGgHN8Gk3Eud0dz8jw)
doesn't return just the font but the font that works with the browser that
requested it. In IE it gives the EOT font in Chrome it gives the TTF

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silvestrov
Another very important advantage is that the browser can cache the stylesheet
and the font, and can reuse them across multiple websites.

So if your website uses a font that is used by another website which the user
has already visited, the browser doesn't need to download the font again. It
doesn't even need to check the modification date on Googles server.

As many fonts add ~100 KB to the download size for a page, this really makes a
difference.

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nopal
On my Windows 7 machine, they're really ugly (in IE, FF, Chrome and Safari). I
double checked to make sure ClearType was enabled, and it is.

I don't think I'd use any of these in a project where I needed a polished look
and feel.

I much prefer Smashing Magazine's non-Google font-ified header font.

Kudos to Google for taking on this project, though. As others have said, this
could be a catalyst in getting the foundries to open up their fonts to the
web.

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abossy
Could you share some screenshots? The browsershots link [1] posted earlier
only contains Windows XP.

It's hard to tell exactly what the quality is in Windos because the
browsershots images are low-res, but it looks like the edges are very noisy.

[1] <http://browsershots.org/http://code.google.com/webfonts>

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nopal
Before I saw your request, I put this one together:
<http://imgur.com/pR1IL.png>

It's Win7 FF on the left, Safari on Mac on the right. I'll try to get some
more when I'm at work tomorrow.

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mgcross
Looks nice on Mac. According to the screenshots, they're antialiased in Ubuntu
also.

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kj12345
Wow this looks great. Just include the stylesheet and use the font in your
CSS.

Seems like the big type foundries are going to regret dragging their feet on
agreeing to a reasonable scheme for web fonts. I know that these are probably
inferior in some ways to commercial fonts, but it will be a steep hill to
climb to get people to pay for fonts if this project gains traction.

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bshep
They don't have many fonts available yet, but if there is something I've
learned about Google is that they always think big. Maybe in a couple of days
they will announce the buy out of one of the foundries?

Here's hoping...

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megablast
To be honest, how many fonts do you need? This is the web, and it is not 1998,
when a lot of people would want to use as many fonts on their page as
possible. Show some restraint.

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thenbrent
More choice doesn't mean more typefaces on a single page.

Even if you use only 3 typefaces on a page, it doesn't mean you don't want
access a library of a thousand fonts so you can use the perfect 3-5 typefaces.

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timinman
Google will tell you that they do things like this to make the web more
usable, or on a larger scale, to make information more accessible. I think
it’s mostly a sincere sentiment; what’s good for the web is good for google.

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jafl5272
I just tried it in IE7, and the JavaScript from Google causes an error. The
font still renders, however.

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iaskwhy
I was just redesigning one of my sites and was thinking seriously about using
Typekit. This makes me rethink my strategy and will probably be a hard hit on
Typekit.

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kilian
It seems Typekit and Google made a deal:
[https://code.google.com/apis/webfonts/docs/webfont_loader.ht...](https://code.google.com/apis/webfonts/docs/webfont_loader.html)
I suppose they plan on 'sharing' the API where Google will supply/host the
free fonts, and Typekit the paid ones?

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minouye
Does Typekit have any advantages over Google? Google has better
infrastructure, a simpler impelentation (no signup required), and a budget to
license a wider variety of fonts.

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zweben
They sell non-free fonts that allow font-face embedding in their licenses.
Google will only offer free fonts.

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mgcross
Yes, and typekit has a huge and varying library of fonts available:
<http://typekit.com/libraries/full>

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neovive
This is a very exciting development that will offer great long-term benefits
to the web. Relying on cross-platform fonts when building web pages was always
challenging and limiting. I'm looking forward to this expansion of the font
directory.

I also hope this improves the web browsing experience on Linux out of the box.

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gills
Disappointing that the gallery doesn't render in the android browser,
considering the mentions of droid fonts.

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bruceboughton
Nor on Mobile Safari.

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username3
Are these free for commercial-use like fontsquirrel.com?

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zweben
Yes. In fact, nearly all of the fonts are also available on fontsquirrel.com.

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zokier
The fonts render really ugly with Firefox 3.6.3 on Windows 7 (cleartype on).
Anyone care to throw a few screenshots from Chrome?

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bd
On Windows 7 it looks the same (ugly aliased) everywhere (Firefox, Chrome,
Opera, Safari, Explorer).

On Windows XP it's even uglier (according to BrowserShots screenshots linked
upthread).

On Ubuntu, Chromium and Firefox are pretty, Opera didn't render anything.

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zokier
I need to try it tomorrow then at work. So it seems that the fonts themselves
aren't that bad, they are just incompatible with most browsers.

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mgcross
The descenders in the Droid sans headlines on Smashing are cropping for me in
vista. The fonts are also aliased, but if I remember correctly, typekit also
only produced aliased fonts in windows.

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KirinDave
I am terrified that we're going to see a lot of people start using Droid Serif
and Droid Sans. These are not hideous fonts, but I find them somewhat
graceless and unappealing.

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retlehs
this currently doesn't support SVG which means no support for the iPhone and
iPad

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greenlblue
Doesn't work on opera.

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Kilimanjaro
One little thing that makes the web a happier and prettier place.

Thanks Google, we owe you big.

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yanw
Google webfont previewer: <http://code.google.com/webfonts/preview>

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eli_s
can anyone shed some light on why some people are reporting aliased text (even
with clear type)?

I'm looking at them on XP and they look stunning in all browsers.

It's not a bulletproof system. I tried looking at the sample page at work
where we have a restrictive proxy filter and it was a no-go.

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AGorilla
Yet another attempt by Google to control our words and by proxy, our minds.
Once everyone depends on this font API to make their social mobisodes pretty,
Google will do some clever pixel altering to insert favorable articles about
itself into the New York Times. They'll change the Chinese government's
website to say "we suck", and a virtual stop-hitting-yourself slapfight will
spillover into real world bloodshed.

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

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thorax
Nah, they just want to move people out of making graphics they can't
crawl/translate/etc and instead encourage people to use a textual format that
Google (and anyone else) can index.

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sketerpot
Naturally, the most insightful comment so far is a reply to a massively-
downvoted "wake up sheeple" post.

