April 28, 2010 by Simon King
After Mozilla’s Firefox brought it to the table and Microsoft and Opera jumped on the band wagon to sponsor its standardisation, it seemed only a matter of time before Google would decide to add support for WOFF (web open font format) to its Chrome internet browser.
In a statement last week Google said that they would be writing the support in a way that will be able to convert WOFF to TrueType fonts for handling by their browser.
WOFF allows browsers to download typefaces that are associated with web pages, therefore allowing web designers to customise their sites appearance.
At the moment most sites use a small set of fonts that are likely to have already come pre-installed with a computer.
In order for a web designer to make a site more distinctive it is necessary for them to have a wider array of typography available to them, just like in an editorial magazine, the font cant make a big difference.
Another advantage of WOFF is that it is able to package a subset of a fonts characters which in turn speeds up the loading of a web page.
WOFF looks as though it will be a welcome addition to the Chrome browser as it has the support of many of the biggest font design companies on the market as well as the leading web browsers’ backing.
WOFF is in the process of being standardised by the World Wide Web Consortium.
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I had a google search bar next to my address bar in firefox which i used ALL the time. i was wondering if this is possible to add in google chrome
Comment by spencer iowa-IA — May 5, 2010 @ 6:40 am