About Photofont®
Photofont® is an exciting new technology developed by FontLab that allows you to create and use full-color bitmap type with transparency. Photofonts are files with the extension .phf. The photofont file format specification is publicly available. It is based on open standards such as XML and PNG. You can create and edit photofonts using our professional bitmap font editor BitFonter for Mac OS X and Windows.
Visit our photofont.com website to learn more about the technology, view photofonts in use and download some free photofonts!
About sIFR
sIFR (originally short for “Scalable Inman Flash Replacement”) is an open source technology based on JavaScript and Adobe Flash. It enables the replacement of text elements on HTML web pages with Flash equivalents that can use custom fonts specified by the web designer. sIFR was created by Shaun Inman and developed by Mike Davidson and Mark Wubben.
Photofont WebReady 1.0 uses sIFR 2 to create embedded web outline fonts, and uses a similar technique (developed by FontLab) to create embedded web photofonts.
More about sIFR:
*) Font licensing note
TrueType and OpenType fonts must allow editable embedding to be converted into embedded web outline fonts, and they must allow read-only (print and preview) embedding to be converted into embedded web photofonts. If your font does not allow a certain type of embedding, use a different font or contact the font vendor to obtain an appropriate license. You can use the demo version of FontLab Studio, a font manager such as Linotype FontExplorer X for Mac OS X or a tool such as the Microsoft Font Properties Extension for Windows to view the embedding permissions in an OpenType or TrueType font.
In addition, please remember that the usage of fonts is typically governed by the End-User License Agreement (EULA) from the font vendor. Please consult the EULA for the font you intend to use to make sure that the font vendor allows embedding the font in online documents or web pages. |
The Benefits
Creators of web pages often wish to use custom fonts on their web pages instead of standard fonts such as Verdana, Georgia or Arial. The use of non-standard fonts can dramatically increase the attractivity of a website and help apply corporate branding on the web. However, the traditional way of creating custom website headlines by applying typographic effects to text and saving the result as a PNG or GIF graphic has many disadvantages. The text saved as a graphic is not “visible” to search engines, screen readers or the Find function of the browser, it does not perform well on small-size screens on mobile phones.
Photofont WebReady works on Windows and on Mac OS X, and allows the user to convert any photofont (.phf) into an embedded web photofont. Any OpenType or TrueType font (.otf, .ttf) can also be converted into an embedded web photofont, or — if the font vendor allows it — into an embedded web outline font.
The integration of WebReady-created web fonts into web pages is seamless, search-engine-friendly and standards-compliant:
- visitors to your website who use modern browsers on desktop computers see the text rendered in the font of your choice (for example, your company’s corporate font) using the Flash® font object generated by Photofont WebReady
- visitors who use browsers that do not support Flash® or JavaScript (for example users of mobile phones) see the text rendered in the default web font specified by the CSS stylesheet
- regardless of the browser used, the text always remains searchable (with the browser’s Find feature) and visible to search engines
- the text remains accessible to special applications such as screen readers for visually impaired people
Because the text is converted into Flash objects, the technique is best applied to relatively short texts, such as headlines — although in principle it can also work for body text.
Different Photofont WebReady solutions
Convert a TrueType font (.ttf) or an OpenType font (.ttf, .otf) into:
- an embedded web outline font — a scalable, outline-based Flash font object that can be seamlessly integrated into any website to dynamically render your own text (such as headlines) in the typeface of your choice, maintaining the searchability and standards compliance of the web page
- a simple outline web headline — a scalable, static, outline-based Flash object that displays the text you specified at the conversion
Convert a TrueType font (.ttf), an OpenType font (.ttf, .otf) or a photofont (.phf) into:
- an embedded web photofont — a bitmap-based Flash font object that can be safely and seamlessly integrated into any website to dynamically render arbitrary text (such as headlines) in the typeface of your choice, without risking that the font outlines are compromised but maintaining the searchability and standards compliance of the web page.
- a simple photofont web headline — a bitmap-based static Flash object that displays the text you specified at the conversion
- a plain bitmap image that displays the text you specified at the conversion
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Photofont 
