

Google’s new Font Directory is a Disaster - arnorhs
http://arnorhs.com/2010/05/20/googles-new-font-directory-is-a-disaster/

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chaosmachine
So, one font doesn't render quite right at a certain size in a certain
browser? Not sure I'd call that a disaster.

 _"I don’t have a clue how they expect to make money from this or why they
wanted to create the directory in the first place"_

I'll tell you why: To encourage the use of plain text instead of images. Every
time a webmaster uses Google's font directory instead of resorting to an image
file, Google's job gets easier.

~~~
silentOpen
It also puts a Google resource hit on lots of pages -- Google gives you fonts,
you give it usage data.

Edit: This is probably not useful to them, actually, due to caching. However,
it is their prerogative at any time to change their resource behavior and
start receiving every request.

~~~
petervandijck
Man this argument gets really old, particularly when you have to use some old
crappy expensive analytics tool because "we don't want to give Google our
data", or when corporate IT doesn't allow you to use Google docs (it's the
same argument). Just cranky.

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phoboslab
This article is a waste of time, imho. All it says is "this one font looks bad
on my (not specified) system, in my (not specified) browser." It compares
three completely different fonts - one of which is professionally crafted,
whereas the other two are "hobbyist" works.

The rendering quality of his test cases has nothing to do with the method
these fonts were embedded.

Anyway, Windows XP is the biggest source for this kind of problems, as you can
see in this chart:

<http://typophile.com/node/70216>

~~~
arnorhs
That's a good point. I'm using Win XP and the font gets rendered the same way
on both Chrome 5 and FF 3.6.3

I can't see how you're going to blame this whole issue on Windows, when other
fonts in the same operating system get rendered much better in smaller sizes.

~~~
phoboslab
Many of the Windows fonts have some special "Font Hinting" built in, which
specifies how to exactly render the font in small sizes. This is important for
systems, where there is no automatic Anti Aliasing in place.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font_hinting>

Creating such a Font Hinting is, from my understanding, quite a tedious task
and became unnecessary for newer systems. Most fonts that don't come along
with Windows, simply don't have this hinting built in anymore.

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tzury
why is he having a different result than the one at:
<http://code.google.com/webfonts/family?family=Vollkorn>

there must be something wrong in the usage, sine at google code site the font
is rendered smoothly.

~~~
arnorhs
Actually, it's _not_ rendered smoothly at all - when you take a look at the
smallest size on google's site, this is what you see:
<http://twitpic.com/1pd6id>

_edit_ : This seems to only be an issue with the way Windows renders fonts.
The fonts look awesome in Ubuntu or Mac systems

~~~
ianbishop
It does render smoothly: <http://grab.by/4tF8>

This must be a browser issue. I am running Safari 4.0.5(6531.22.7)

~~~
arnorhs
Wow, that looks really nice. Are you running Safari in a Mac?

~~~
ianbishop
Yup! 10.6.3

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bennysaurus
The issue is ClearType - turn it off, refresh your browser and it will render
properly. Something somewhere needs fixing up obviously but it doesn't look to
be with the engine Google is using to put the font on the page.

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arnorhs
This problem seems to only affect Windows machines. On Macs and Ubuntu
machines the fonts look fine: <http://grab.by/4tF8>

This problem is also only apparent on smaller text sizes. As soon as the font
gets bigger, as for headings, the fonts look fine.

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barrkel
Due to the readability troubles custom fonts can cause, I have them disabled
in Firefox with about:config's gfx.downloadable_fonts.enabled setting set to
false. Too often has the "stylish" choice sacrificed readability while aiming
for a fashionable look.

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chime
To make the font-smoother on XP etc., add this CSS:

text-shadow: #fff 0 0 1px;

~~~
barake
Does this screw up font smoothing on *nix or OS X?

Now someone just needs to figure out how to get IE to play nice.

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10tlock
Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this!? Doctor: Then do not do that!

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almost
s/is a Disaster/doesn't seem to work right for me at the moment/

