Web Open Font Format

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Web Open Font Format
Preferences-desktop-font.svg
File extension : .woff, .woff2
MIME type : font / woff, font / woff2
Magic number : 0x774F4646 hex
wOFF
Developed by: Jonathan Kew, Erik van Blokland, Tal Leming
Type: font
Container for: Fonts and meta information
Website : Official W3C website


The Web Open Font Format ( WOFF ) is a compressing container format for web fonts . It is intended for use on websites and should be able to be used regardless of the operating system used.

WOFF 1.0

properties

It was specified by font developers Erik van Blokland and Tal Leming together with Mozilla developer Jonathan Kew. The advantages of WOFF arise in particular with fonts that are loaded from Internet pages, as the loading times can be reduced considerably by compression . WOFF supports fonts that are saved in certain formats such as OpenType or TrueType . After decompression, the character set is available again in the original format. In addition, metadata can be stored in a WOFF file , in which, for example, information about the origin and license of the font can be saved.

Files in WOFF can a. can be created and edited with the free software FontForge .

distribution

The first web browser to support WOFF is Firefox from version 3.6. The development version WebKit2 also implements WOFF, so that Chrome with version 6 and Apple Safari from version 5.1 and Konqueror from KDE 4.4.1 followed. For Internet Explorer support was introduced from IE9 and for Opera with version 11.10.

WOFF 1.0 has been the W3C internet standard since December 13, 2012 .

Browser support

  • Firefox from V3.6 (January 21, 2010)
  • Google Chrome V6.0 or higher (September 2, 2010)
  • Internet Explorer version 9 or higher (May 14, 2011, available from Windows Vista)
  • Microsoft Edge version 12 or higher (July 29, 2015)
  • Konqueror since KDE 4.4.1 (March 2nd, 2010)
  • Opera from V11.10 (Presto 2.7.81) (April 12, 2011)
  • Safari V5.1 or higher (July 20, 2011 with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion )
  • Other WebKit-based browsers from WebKit Build 528

WOFF 2.0

properties

The main advantage of the format for web fonts lies in the resulting file size: Instead of “bit-wise loss-free”, WOFF2 files are compressed “functionally loss-free”. In addition, the extremely efficient Brotli compression method is used (instead of LZMA as originally planned ), which makes the font file even leaner. With WOFF2, Google speaks of “up to 50% size reduction” compared to WOFF. Practice has confirmed a minimum value of 20 percent.

A conversion of the original fonts in TTF format to WOFF 2.0 is possible with the aid of a command.

In May 2014, the WOFF 2.0 format was officially manifested as a Public Working Draft in W3C. The so-called whitepaper summarizes technical details, properties and processes in connection with WOFF 2.0.

CSS usage

 @font-face {
    font-family: font;
    src: url(font.woff2) format("woff2"), url(font.woff) format("woff");
 }

Browser support

Since support for WOFF 2.0 requires client-side adjustments, reasonably up-to-date browsers are necessary.

  • Google Chrome from version 36
  • Opera from version 26
  • Firefox from version 35
  • Microsoft Edge from version 14

Individual evidence

  1. ^ IETF: The "font" Top-Level Media Type
  2. ↑ IANA: Media Types
  3. ↑ people.mozilla.com ( Memento from February 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ golem.de
  5. ↑ hacks.mozilla.org/2009/10/woff
  6. ↑ bugs.webkit.org
  7. ↑ Matt Colyer: Typekit adds Chrome 6 WOFF support. In: typekit. September 21, 2010, accessed April 13, 2011 .
  8. ↑ Apple Safari Features. Retrieved August 12, 2011 .
  9. ^ HTML5, Native: Third IE9 Platform Preview Available for Developers. In: IEBlog. June 23, 2010, accessed April 13, 2011 .
  10. ↑ Opera 11.10 for Windows changelog. Opera Software ASS, April 12, 2011, accessed April 13, 2011 .
  11. ↑ WOFF File Format 1.0 (W3C Recommendation 13 December 2012). Retrieved December 13, 2012 .
  12. ↑ WOFF File Format 1.0 is an Internet standard. Retrieved December 14, 2012 .
  13. ↑ Chrome 36 Beta: The new WOFF 2.0 Web Font compression format. Retrieved May 25, 2014 .
  14. ↑ Google Fonts optimizations with WOFF 2.0. Retrieved May 25, 2014 .
  15. ↑ TTF to WOFF2 converting. Retrieved May 25, 2014 .
  16. ↑ WOFF File Format 2.0 (W3C First Public Working Draft May 08, 2014). Retrieved May 25, 2014 .
  17. ↑ Chromium 36 Release Notes. Retrieved August 18, 2015 .
  18. ↑ Opera 26 Release Notes. Retrieved August 18, 2015 .
  19. ↑ Firefox 35 Release Notes. Retrieved August 18, 2015 .
  20. ↑ Microsoft Edge WOFF File Format 2.0 Standards Support Document. Retrieved November 15, 2018 .