What web font format has the highest quality?

CodeOverload picture CodeOverload · Nov 27, 2010 · Viewed 10k times · Source

I've seen that some websites use @font-face but they look creepy & without anti-aliasing, But some other websites use some fonts with a very high quality, I don't know if they use OTF or TTF or SVG or what exactly, This is an example.

I've looked into their source but there is like 4 font types and i can't figure out which one is being used.

Thanks

Answer

Sebastian Patane Masuelli picture Sebastian Patane Masuelli · Nov 27, 2010

There are three factors that affect quality display of the font:

  1. Quality of the font. Some fonts are poorly made, some are missing characters, some have ligature issues, etc. I suggest testing the font across all browsers before committing to it.
  2. Browser rendering of the font. Chrome, Safari, FF and IE display render fonts differently.
  3. Formats readable by the browser: each also can only read a limited number of formats. (EOT for IE, TT for pretty much everything else, including FF, and there's more).

In conclusion: web fonts are still somewhat of a dark and mysterious art. Invariably, there will be minor differences. Find a well built font, and test it across your target browsers. I think we're still very much in the trial and error phase with @font-face, but there are good resources to help along the way.