Fonts Fonts Fonts. I love fonts! I have about 300 supposedly free fonts on my hard drive. The day I learned how to embed them in a page was one of my proudest moments as a webmaster. The day I found out that I could be sued for using embedded fonts on my site was a damned scary day.

What is a font? A font is the digital version of typeface.

"With indiscriminate use of typeface or fonts, one can unintentionally abuse the intellectual property rights of a designer."

Monks invented typeface a long time ago. Instead of hand-lettering religious texts, some inventive monks developed a way to carve individual letters out of metal. They took these individual letters and put them together in sentences and paragraphs on a big sheet. Then they would dip the sheet in ink and stamp the sheet of typeface onto paper. This enabled them to mass-produce texts. The invention of typeface changed the world. Because text was able to be mass-produced, common peoples could not only read them, but also finally afford to purchase them. Typeface in itself is how the individual letter or character looks.

Most of us take typeface for granted. We don't realize an artisan worked long and hard to develop a character type. With indiscriminate use of typeface or fonts, one can unintentionally abuse the intellectual property rights of a designer.

Embedding a font into a page is a little different that simply choosing a font from your collection and using a font tag. When you add simple font tags, the font you choose will only be seen by those surfers that have those same fonts on their hard-drive. If they do not, they will see your text with the default fonts supplied through their particular browser program.

When you embed a font into your page, you are having your surfers download your fonts to their machine. Netscape and Internet Explorer use different methods for font downloading or embedding.

Using browser default fonts is allowed, but embedding fonts is where the laws protecting intellectual property come into play. A font designer made that cool font you found. Before you have your clients download that font into their machine, you better make sure you have the full, licensed permission of the font designer.

My favorite font designer or typographer is Chank Diesel. If you've purchased a taco from ÓTaco Bell in the past five years, you know Chank's work. Mr. Diesel designed that neato, speckly lettering on their cups and packaging. Believe it or not, Chank Diesel makes his living designing letter characters. He is a brilliant artist and deserves financial compensation. All fonts/typeface designers deserve compensation.

If you wish to embed fonts into your site first, you need to decide which method of delivery you want. If you want to use the Netscape method, then you will need to learn about Bitstream technology. If you choose the Internet Explorer method, you will want to contact Microsoft's font leasing/purchasing site. If you want to feature Adobe fonts, you will need to explore their PDF section.

Once you have legally paid for or leased your fonts, then you are free to embed them into your site according to the terms of each company. A nice-looking font makes for a more pleasant Internet experience for your surfer. Using embedded fonts for your site title instead of an image logo insures faster downloads and better search engine indexing.

To learn more about legal typography and where you can purchase or lease fonts for your site, you will find these places helpful:

Bitstream Incorporated
(http://www.bitstream.com)
These are the folks that developed the Netscape method of downloading fonts. This is where you can learn how to implement the Bitstream process into your site and where you can lease/buy approved fonts.

Adobe
(http://www.adobe.com/type)
Adobe controls the PDF format. Official government documents are written in PDF. If you want to use the PDF format for your surfers, you need to visit Adobe about the legalities of PDF.

Microsoft
(http://www.microsoft.com/typography)
Since Microsoft uses a different method of font embedding that Netscape, it would very wise to visit this place. At this time Internet Explorer is the most used browser in the world and it would be foolish not to consider surfers that use IE. Microsoft has many legal, licensed fonts for you to purchase or lease.

Chank
(http://www.chank.com)
As I stated above, Chank is my favorite typographer. His work is fun, inventive and cool. Not only does he sell and lease fonts; he can also design a new font for you. Visit his site because it's full of information and instruction.

Remember that intellectual property laws apply not just to embedded fonts, but also to logos. If you take a font and dress it up in your paint program and save it as an image, you are still using someone else's work. As an adult webmaster, you are aware that there is no such thing as public domain images. There is also no such thing as public domain fonts.