Comments on: Truetype, Font Variants and Antialiasing

By: omnicity

omnicity — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:29:42 +0000

@phiw13

“Is is actually a bug and a spec violation”

I would disagree with that, if there is any error, it is on the part of the CSS developer, not the browser. A specific font-face was requested, and since the OS found a match, that face was used. Arguably the declaration name is wrong, since it goes against current font-tech conventions, though they are rather confused across the board.

By: AlexW

AlexW — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:11:10 +0000

On my systems (XP through Win7), IE, Chrome, and FF display as you would expect, anti-aliased.

But I’m guessing you also don’t have Helvetica Neue installed either, so you’re seeing Arial most likely.

By: royatl

royatl — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:13:02 +0000

um, I think your system is configured incorrectly. Anti-Aliasing is normally handled by the system, not the browser (Safari is the exception, as they use a different philosophy of anti-aliasing — i.e. the typeface is technically correct at the expense of a little readability).

On my systems (XP through Win7), IE, Chrome, and FF display as you would expect, anti-aliased.

Vista and Win7 are set to anti-alias by default. If you’re on XP you may need to dig around in Display Properties for the correct setting.

By: AlexW

AlexW — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:27:59 +0000

I had a look around for Guillermo Esteves’ post mentioned here but couldn’t find it anywhere. Could you provide a link to it please?

Sorry Shaz, it’s linked now.

By: lotrgamemast

lotrgamemast — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:07:34 +0000

Interesting bug. It does show up as Arial for me (Opera 9.6, Win Vista).

By: jont17

jont17 — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:56:32 +0000

Surely when developing web sites you need to check what end users are likely to see? It doesn’t matter how beautiful it looks on your Mac if most of your audience are seeing something horrible in IE6 on windows… That is basically the lot of the web designer!

By: Shaz

Shaz — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:53:55 +0000

I had a look around for Guillermo Esteves’ post mentioned here but couldn’t find it anywhere. Could you provide a link to it please?

By: phiw13

phiw13 — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:44:34 +0000

Is is actually a bug and a spec violation. The css2.1 & 3 texts clearly calls for a 'family name' (the property is called font-family after all), in the example given that is 'Helvetica Neue'. If you want to use the lighter face, you add font-weight:300;. That works in Safari 4b and Firefox 3. Older Gecko/Webkit browser don't have support for multiple font weight though (they can only display normal and bold). And that fails also in Opera/IE for the same reason. Safari 4b still has some support for the ps-name for some backwards compatibility reason. PS - I noticed recently that Windows (XP up to Windows 7) has serious display issues for 'light'-weight fonts (any), whatever the level of font-smoothing.

By: Grateful

Grateful — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:15:03 +0000

I’ve been going mad searching for an explanation for this, thankyou! Disappointing that some mac people are skipping testing for the browser of 85% of their target audience.

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:52:44 +0000

this finally makes sense! now i know why website text started looking funny after i installed helvetica on my windows box…