I have a standalone HTML document I want to distribute, without any external dependencies. I'm using a non-standard font in this document that only some of my users will have installed.
For those users that do not have the font installed, I am including a copy of the font in an embedded SVG document at the top of the <body>
. (I'm using a one-glyph font for this example, the real document is using a complete font.)
<svg style="display: none;"><defs>
<font id="MyFontElement">
<font-face font-family="MyFont" />
<glyph unicode="A" horiz-adv-x="950" d="M0,0L0,100L100,100L100,200L0,200L0,300L100,300L100,400L200,400L200,500L300,500L300,600L400,600L600,600L600,500L700,500L700,400L800,400L800,300L900,300L900,200L800,200L800,100L900,100L900,0L600,0L600,100L700,100L700,200L800,200L800,300L100,300L100,200L200,200L200,100L300,100L300,0L0,0M300,400L600,400L600,500L300,500L300,400Z" />
</font>
</defs></svg>
SVG fonts do not look as nice as ordinary fonts, so I only want the SVG font to be used if the font is not installed locally. If the font was defined in an external SVG document, I could use it at a lower priority than the locally-installed font like this: (fiddle)
<style>
@font-face {
font-family: "My Font";
src: local("My Font"), url("fonts.svg#MyFontElement") format("svg");
}
</style>
<p style="font: 3em 'My Font';">
Alphabet
</p>
Unfortunately, none of the obvious variations seem to work for a font in the current document: (fiddle)
src: local("My Font"),
url("./#MyFontElement") format("svg"),
url("./#MyFontElement"),
url("#MyFontElement") format("svg"),
url("#MyFontElement");
Even without a @font-face
declaration, the font is already available in the document as MyFont
, the font-family
specified in the <font-face />
. However, this will be used at a higher priority than a native font named MyFont
, so it is not an solution.
I hoped that I might be able to refer to it as local("MyFont")
... (fiddle)
src: local("My Font"), /* local */
local("MyFont"); /* embedded */
...but that doesn't work either.
I could give the embedded font a different name and use it at a lower priority, style="font-family: LocalFont, EmbeddedFont"
, but I'm allowing users to import snippets from local files into the document and those local files will refer to the font only by the standard name. It would be possible to rewrite these references when they're imported, but I don't like that solution.
How do I refer to an SVG font embedded in the current document from a @font-face
declaration?
You can use a <basefont> tag to set all of your text to the same size, face, and color. The font tag is having three attributes called size, color, and face to customize your fonts. To change any of the font attributes at any time within your webpage, simply use the <font> tag.
Today, the best approach for embedding fonts directly in your SVG file is to use an OpenType-compatible web font, converted to a data URI, as the src URL in a CSS @font-face rule. Nonetheless, think carefully before using a data URI font on the web.
In Photoshop, select the Text Tool (T), create a text box on the page, and add your content. On the toolbar, select the SVG font of your choice.
Convert the font to a data URI and embedded it in the CSS declaration: (fiddle)
<style>
@font-face {
font-family: "My Font";
src: url("data:application/octet-stream;base64,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") format("svg");
}
</style>
<p style="font: 3em 'My Font';">
Alphabet
</p>
There's one caveat: you can't use an ID specifier (#MyFont
) with a data URI like this. Therefore you can only have a single font in the encoded file, rather than having multiple and referring to them individually. (Not that you'd want to; duplicating the data for multiple embedded fonts in the declaration for each font would be a huge waste of space.)
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