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eckndu

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 20, 2008
109
3
hi, I need a windows system font that is similar to Hoefler Text.
preferably also present in osx...

need a system font so ppl visiting the page wont need to have to install special fonts... thanks.
 

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
hi, I need a windows system font that is similar to Hoefler Text.
preferably also present in osx...

need a system font so ppl visiting the page wont need to have to install special fonts... thanks.
How about Hoefler Text?

BTW, you don't want a system font; you want a user font. It is very bad practice to design a website that requires your visitors to use a relatively rare font like Hoefler Text. There is a mechanism for embedding fonts in webpages, but why bother? What will Hoefler Text do for your visitor that Times New can't do? Nobody visits your website to look at your typography.
 

splitpea

macrumors 65816
Oct 21, 2009
1,134
396
Among the starlings
Strongly agreed with MisterMe.

The only exception I'd make would be for occasional headings, in which case SiFR with a fallback works nicely.

The only proportional serif fonts you can depends on being installed pretty much everywhere are Times/Times New Roman and Georgia.

BTW, do you know how to specify fallback fonts?
 

tsd

macrumors regular
Aug 10, 2007
143
10
Pennsylvania
How about Hoefler Text?

BTW, you don't want a system font; you want a user font. It is very bad practice to design a website that requires your visitors to use a relatively rare font like Hoefler Text. There is a mechanism for embedding fonts in webpages, but why bother? What will Hoefler Text do for your visitor that Times New can't do? Nobody visits your website to look at your typography.

Dude. Seriously? Why are you posting in the Design and Graphics forum if you don't think typography is INCREDIBLY important?

eckndu, I would also recommend you look into SiFR and also the new CSS @font-face property. Lots of fonts are now licensed for @font-face embedding, and it's relatively easy to set up. There's just a little learning curve when you first get into it. I would look into Jos Buivenga's Calluna if you want a serif to embed. His free fonts are all licensed for @font-face embedding. http://www.exljbris.com
 

opeter

macrumors 68030
Aug 5, 2007
2,679
1,602
Slovenia
Dude. Seriously? Why are you posting in the Design and Graphics forum if you don't think typography is INCREDIBLY important?

It is important, but the Web has some standard.
If you would really like some headlines in different fonts, do it in Flash or use images.
 

eckndu

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 20, 2008
109
3
iweb made the title into a pic, which is nice, but when I see the site from a windows box, the font is really bad, I will look into Georgia, thanks
 

SwiftLives

macrumors 65816
Dec 7, 2001
1,356
341
Charleston, SC
tsd - I agree typography is important. But we're not to a point yet where standards allow designers to have that kind of control over web design. And with web design, you're designing for as many browsers and OS flavors as you can, so as not to alienate viewers.

The simplest solution would be to use a Web safe font such as Georgia or Times. An alternative would be to use it in a headline and set it as a graphic. I wouldn't recommend Flash, as that doesn't play nicely with SEO and —*not to start a war here — isn't exactly super stable right now.
 

IanTheLesser

macrumors newbie
Aug 4, 2010
2
0
Good news and bad news.

The good news: any font can be embedded in a website using the @font-face directive in CSS and this syntax:
@font-face{font-family: "Full Font Family Name";
src: "/path/to/font"}
The font-family font name will be the name as it appears in menus. The file you place on your site can be a ttf for Firefox, Safari, Mozilla, etc..., and you'll need a separate otf version for IE. Then you'd probably want to put the IE @font-face directive in conditional comments, which only IE will recognize (something like <!--[if IE]><style>IE specific style rules</style><[endif]-->, but don't quote me because I haven't used conditional commenting in awhile).

The bad news: it's illegal. According to the the EULA at Hoefler and Frere-Jones (the makers of HT), usage in @font-face is not permitted without additional licensing.

My recommendation: so far Georgia looks like the closest one, with a lighter font-weight added. You can still specify Hoefler Text for those that have it, though, by just listing it first in your comma separated list of font-families.

Hope this helps.
 

lucidmedia

macrumors 6502a
Oct 13, 2008
702
37
Wellington, New Zealand
The Google Fonts API may be what you're looking for. It's super easy to use and has a couple of faces that would probably do.

Agreed... also Google has partnered with TypeKit (http://typekit.com/) which is a font hosting service that takes care of a lot of the licensing issues for non-open-source fonts.

Note that both of the above avoid the CSS font face browser incompatibilities by relying on Javascript instead.

tsd I wouldn't recommend Flash, as that doesn't play nicely with SEO and —*not to start a war here — isn't exactly super stable right now.

Actually, sIFR handles both of the above issues elegantly... sIFR uses flash as a rendering engine but is fully indexable (it has, in fact, been endorsed by Google) and fails elegantly for users who don't have flash installed or enabled. People lacking flash won't even know what they are missing: the scale, position and hierarchy of the text stays the same...
 

ezekielrage_99

macrumors 68040
Oct 12, 2005
3,336
19
Use Georgia because it's web safe and available on Mac, Window$ and Linux... Problem solved :cool:

Seriously I didn't think it would be that complicated...


BTW CSS3 and other Java/Flash based rendering is more hassle than it's worth, font rendering in IE looks like ***** anywayz...
 

eckndu

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 20, 2008
109
3
If I haven't said so already, thanks everyone for the help.
 
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