Dynamic fonts

Dynamic fonts are one of the latest developments in HTML design. Instead of relying on the fonts that are installed on the user's machine, web authors can now create pages using the fonts they have on their systems with the assurance that those pages will display in a browser with their font formatting intact. For Indian language websites this means the users need not download and install the various TrueType fonts that the websites use.

Free tools are available in the Internet using which you can create Dynamic fonts. Basically, these tools create .PFR(Portable Font Resource) files or .EOT(Embedded Open Type) files from the TrueType(TTF) files. The PFR and the EOT files are the competing technologies from the TrueDoc and Microsoft Corporation respectively. Naturally, the .PFR is supported well in Netscape 4.0 & above Browsers. The .EOT files are supported in Internet Explorer 4.0 & above only.

Usually the HTML page will embed both .PFR & .EOT files. Depending on the type of the browser accessing the HTML page either .PFR or .EOT file will be used to render the page using the Dynamic Fonts.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.truedoc.com or http://www.bitstream.com for information on tools and technology for creating .PFR files.

http://www.microsoft.com/OpenType/web/embedding/weft/default.htm for the WEFT(Web Embedding Font Tool) tool from Microsoft for creating .EOT files.