Web Open Font Format
Encyclopedia
The Web Open Font Format (WOFF) is a font
format for use in web
pages. It was developed during 2009 and is in the process of being standardized as a recommendation
by the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) Web Fonts Working Group.
WOFF is mostly TTF
with compression and additional metadata. The goal is to support font distribution from a server to a client over a network. This means that bandwidth is an important parameter.
, Opera Software
and Microsoft
on April 8, 2010, the W3C commented that it expects WOFF to soon become the "single, interoperable format" supported by all browsers. The W3C published WOFF as a working draft on July 27, 2010. Later on August 04, 2011 the W3C published WOFF as Candidate Recommendation.
-based fonts (TrueType
, OpenType
, or Open Font Format) that have been compressed using a WOFF encoding tool to enable them to be embedded in a web page. The format uses zlib
compression (specifically, the compress2 function), typically resulting in a filesize reduction from TTF of over 40%.
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
format for use in web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
pages. It was developed during 2009 and is in the process of being standardized as a recommendation
W3C recommendation
A W3C Recommendation is the final stage of a ratification process of the World Wide Web Consortium working group concerning a technical standard. This designation signifies that a document has been subjected to a public and W3C-member organization's review. It aims to standardise the Web technology...
by the World Wide Web Consortium
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
(W3C) Web Fonts Working Group.
WOFF is mostly TTF
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
with compression and additional metadata. The goal is to support font distribution from a server to a client over a network. This means that bandwidth is an important parameter.
Submission as a standard
Following the submission of WOFF by the Mozilla FoundationMozilla Foundation
The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that exists to support and provide leadership for the open source Mozilla project. The organization sets the policies that govern development, operates key infrastructure and controls trademarks and other intellectual property...
, Opera Software
Opera Software
Opera Software ASA is a Norwegian software company, primarily known for its Opera family of web browsers with over 220 million users worldwide. Opera Software is also involved in promoting Web standards through participation in the W3C. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway and is...
and Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
on April 8, 2010, the W3C commented that it expects WOFF to soon become the "single, interoperable format" supported by all browsers. The W3C published WOFF as a working draft on July 27, 2010. Later on August 04, 2011 the W3C published WOFF as Candidate Recommendation.
Specification
WOFF is essentially a wrapper that contains sfntSfnt
Sfnt is a font file format used for PostScript, TrueType and OpenType fonts. Sfnt stands for spline font, and was originally developed for Apple Computer's QuickDraw....
-based fonts (TrueType
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
, OpenType
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
, or Open Font Format) that have been compressed using a WOFF encoding tool to enable them to be embedded in a web page. The format uses zlib
Zlib
zlib is a software library used for data compression. zlib was written by Jean-Loup Gailly and Mark Adler and is an abstraction of the DEFLATE compression algorithm used in their gzip file compression program. Zlib is also a crucial component of many software platforms including Linux, Mac OS X,...
compression (specifically, the compress2 function), typically resulting in a filesize reduction from TTF of over 40%.
Vendor support
The format has received the backing of many of the main font foundries and has been supported by all major browsers:- Firefox since version 3.6Mozilla Firefox 3.6Mozilla Firefox 3.6 is a version of the Firefox web browser released in January 2010. The release's main improvement over Firefox 3.5 is improved performance . It uses the Gecko 1.9.2 engine , which improves compliance with web standards...
- Google ChromeGoogle ChromeGoogle Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
since version 6.0, - OperaOpera (web browser)Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...
since version 11.10 (PrestoPresto (layout engine)Presto is the layout engine for later versions of the Opera web browser . After several public betas and technical previews, it was released on January 28, 2003 in Opera 7 for Windows, and as of Opera 11 it is still in use. Presto is dynamic: the page or parts of it can be re-rendered in response...
2.7.81). - KonquerorKonquerorNot to be confused with the Conqueror web browser.Konqueror is a web browser and file manager that provides file-viewer functionality for file systems such as local files, files on a remote ftp server and files in a disk image. It is a core part of the KDE desktop environment...
since KDEKDEKDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
4.4.1. - Internet Explorer 9Internet Explorer 9Windows Internet Explorer 9 is the current version of the Internet Explorer web browser from Microsoft. It was released to the public on March 14, 2011 at 21:00 PDT. Internet Explorer 9 supports several CSS 3 properties, embedded ICC v2 or v4 color profiles support via Windows Color System, and...
, - SafariSafari (web browser)Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
5.1. - other WebKit-based browsers since WebKit build 528.
See also
- Web typographyWeb typographyWeb typography refers to the use of fonts on the World Wide Web. When HTML was first created, font faces and styles were controlled exclusively by the settings of each Web browser. There was no mechanism for individual Web pages to control font display until Netscape introduced the tag in 1995,...
- Comparison of layout engines (Web Typography)Comparison of layout engines (Web Typography)The following tables compare support for different font formats and support for CSS3 font resources for a number of layout engines. Web fonts were initially defined from CSS2, then added into CSS3...
- Embedded OpenTypeEmbedded OpenTypeEmbedded OpenType fonts are a compact form of OpenType fonts designed by Microsoft for use as embedded fonts on web pages. These files usually use the extension ".eot"....
(EOT)
External links
- Current specification of the WOFF file format at the World Wide Web ConsortiumWorld Wide Web ConsortiumThe World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
's website