While contemplating creating your own web-resource, you are, with a high degree of probability, depicting it to be an “out of ordinary” one. Needless to say, unique design may turn out to become the exact tool that will attract tons of new customers; eventually, the way content is presented will happen to be the dominant force, rather than content itself. Custom fonts, in particular, can help you customize your web-site in an exclusive manner. Unfortunately, the web-resource containing your own individually-designed fonts will take ages to upload. With that being said, we would like to finally determine whether the custom fonts can be creative and easily-uploadable at the same time.
There are different ways to optimize your fonts. You may:
- apply Google Fonts API
- place your fonts on hosting
- use the “delayed” font upload
- diminish the size of your fonts
It is advisable to examine every method in detail; by doing this, you will get to know which tool fits your initial purposes and yields the biggest amount of benefit. At the first glance, all of them look simple; however, as any move in the field of optimization, it requires some knowledge of web-designing and programming. To begin with, you have to fill in some fonts: do not type that much, otherwise you will “puzzle” your work even more. Next step is to use one of the following methods: allocation/application of a specialized service called “Google Fonts API”, set up of the “delayed” font upload or caching.
Fonts’ Optimization With The Help Of Google Fonts API
The service Google Fonts API allows to set up your web-resource with an extreme easiness; the whole procedure doesn’t make you spend too much time on it. Basically, you need to use the servicing link which delivers to you the needed font and CSS-code. At the same time, the service itself contains thousands of combinations with language lay-outs.
As you can see, using Google Fonts API is not difficult; however, the upload of custom fonts is still an issue: the size makes it a “torturing” procedure. Quite frequently, users are complaining about the duration of the page’s upload: they are stuck with blank screens, waiting for the fonts to appear eventually. Because of this, the owners of web-resources have to come up with the ways to “entertain” users staring at empty monitors.
The easiest solution that immediately occurs is to get rid of useless stuff. Consequently, conduct a detailed research and highlight the symbols that have no usage for your web-site. Try to cut other symbols that are vital for site’s operation as well; this will stabilize the traffic and ease the life of users. Another thing you have to keep in mind is the font’s style: italicized, bold or underlined.
In other words, Google Fonts API delivers only needed fonts – the fonts that suit your web-resource the best. In addition to this, it tells browser not to upload the whole font: there are always some elements that are not used under any circumstances. Also, you may use here “text={letters}”, enabling you to cut certain symbols with respect to specific parameters. This feature, as a matter of fact, is constantly exploited by logo-makers.
Fonts’ Optimization By Allocation On Hosting
As a rule, browser, which the user is working with, doesn’t present any custom fonts. Because of this, one has to make use of additional files that contain information regarding the fonts and their typeface. Bear in mind that files are grouped by browsers, meaning that specific files require particular browsers. For instance, Android works with TFF format, while Google Chrome supports woff.
If one has an inbuilt font (which is highly improbable), the usage of “local” will allocate all the fonts through hosting. Another aspect that has to be kept in mind is your web-site’s visibility and accessibility from all the possible browsers. In order to guarantee this, you will have to use a specific garniture; to process any font, try “Font Squirrel” or any other alternative with alike functions. As soon as you receive CSS-code and pack of needed files, you may place them on your hosting.
Optimization Through The “Delayed” Font Upload
Did you know that all the negative effects related to fonts’ upload may be eliminated through some useful tools? In fact, only professional IT-guys are well-aware of the following tricks:
- preliminary upload
- Font Loading API
- caching (in mobile devices – base64)
The first method may only be applicable when uploading files not from a primary page. Current browsers deliver help on the basis of “prefetch”, which is actually used in this case.
Font Loading API, unfortunately, is not supported by every browser; nevertheless, it helps speed up the whole procedure. In turn, the method is based on the compatibility of inbuilt fonts with recently-downloaded ones; during the upload, both custom and user’s fonts are depicted. The browser may indeed freeze for a second, but one won’t even notice this glitch.
Obviously, caching is not applicable in every case; only when user returns to a closed page. This method cuts the time used for redirection from one page to another.
Optimization Through The Change Of Size
You can change the size of your fonts and enhance the efficiency of your web-resource in three ways:
- squeeze your font
- inversed compatibility
- exclusion of glyphs
If squeezing is done in a static way, the whole procedure becomes trivial automatically: you can place them right next to font-files and archives. If you use dynamic squeezing, the important task is to control the optimization at every stage: precision and time are required.
In the situation when custom font cannot be uploaded, you have to make browser “aware” of the set of fonts that you are interested in. Basically, in “font face” there is already the name of a main font; the only thing left is to choose a secondary one. Apart from this, mention the modification mode: monospace, sans-serif or serif (all these endings are obligatory to be included).
What is more, the text itself is “drawn” on the web-page, which means that not every symbol of the font has to be incorporated. All the glyphs can be dealt with through the following services: Subset.py, Font Squirrel, Google Fonts, FontPrep. These methods are pretty basic, but they bring a substantial development to your web-resource.
To sum it up, your predominant aim is to sort out the fonts: exclude futile and add vital. Having done all the work, you will be left with highly-efficient fonts with the maximum utility. Remember the golden rule: there are many ways of fonts’ optimization – make sure to choose the correct one.
