Asmall series of articles on using fonts in ePub3 has been published on the APEX@IGP information site. Topics covered are CSS-3 font properties, font sub-setting, using OTF font-features, plus some interesting resources and font presentation pages. There is a font file size and browser compatability warning as well. Here are the links:
Fonts and Typography In Digital Content Introduction
This Unit introduction is an overview of fonts in digital content. It covers various tips and techniques for using fonts and typographic strategies in non-print digital content such as e-books, ePub and other presentation environments.
Open Source Font List
Currently it is generally only possible to use open source fonts for embedding in ePub files and for use on with websites. This is a resource list to access a useful list of open source fonts. Most of these fonts are provided by default in IGP:Font Manager 2.
CSS-3 Font Properties
Fonts in digital content take on considerable horsepower with CSS-3 font properties. This is about using WOFF fonts in ePub3 that conform to the IDPF ePub3 specification and using fonts online where browsers conform to the appropriate W3C specification.
Font Sub-Setting
Fonts in e-books are starting to grow up fast. The main sticking point at present is font foundry policies on embedded fonts in ePub. The IGP:Digital Publisher font packaging strategy now includes font sub-setting (just like a PDF), abstract naming, WOFF conversion and obfuscation.
OTF Font Features and Glyphs
Font-features are now accessible in all major browsers except Safari (at the time of writing. This article gives you some ideas on how to take advantage of font-features in your ePublishing.
Go to Font Features and Glyphs ➤
Fonts Ripped Open
There are also two pages demonstrating OTF fonts ripped open with all Unicode Character Tables AND Font feature Glyph tables exposed. You can go straight to them here:
MEgalopolis Extra A great font and a great way to easily see a good number of font features in use.
Go to MEgalopolis Ripped Open ➤
Linux Libertine The standard weight font-face which shows the extensive European and East European support this font both in characters and font features.
Go to Linux Libertine Ripped Open ➤
Browser Warning
These pages use up to 12MByte of embedded fonts.
To view all the font-features on these pages you will need standards compliant browsers which support WOFF, OTF and TTF fonts and more importantly the new CSS-3 font-feature specification. At the time of writing this means Firefox 8+, Google Chrome 18+, Apple Safari 5.2+(Window only).
Posted by Richard Pipe