Creating Web Pages with TrueDoc and Dynamic Fonts.

Dynamic fonts are one of the latest developments in HTML design. Brought to you by Netscape, Bitstream, and many popular authoring tool developers, dynamic fonts put more creative power in web authors' hands. Instead of relying on the same old boring typefaces, web authors can now create pages using the fonts they have on their systems, with the assurance that those pages will display in a browser with their font formatting intact.

This document includes these topics:

TrueDoc and Dynamic Fonts

Behind it all is a technology from Bitstream called TrueDoc. When built into authoring tools and web browsers, TrueDoc provides the seamless and secure transfer of font data from the web author's server to the web viewer's system.

TrueDoc has two main components: the Character Shape Recorder (CSR) and the Character Shape Player (CSP).

HexWeb Typograph has the CSR Recorder built-in. The CSR records characters from the fonts that web authors use in their documents and stores them in a highly compact data structure called a Portable Font Resource (PFR).The CSP is built into Netscape Communicator 4.01 (and later), and is rendering the downloaded font rsources.

Even with the TrueDoc components built into the authoring tools and browser, there are still some techniques that you, the web author, will need to know to make the process work.

How to Get the Latest TrueDoc-Enabled Tools

Essentially, you need a TrueDoc-enabled browser, such as Netscape Communicator, to view dynamic fonts. You need a TrueDoc-enabled authoring tool (such as HexWeb Typograph from HexMac) to create dynamic fonts for web documents:

Download Netscape Communicator.
Download HexWeb Typograph from HexMac.

How Dynamic Fonts Work for Web Authors:

Dynamic fonts let you, as a web author, use your installed fonts in a web document. You can create a font file for an HTML document with any TrueDoc-enabled authoring tool. The authoring tool captures characters from the fonts you use, and stores them in a PFR (Portable Font Resource, a highly compact data file). Then you post the PFR and the HTML document on your web site.

Dynamic fonts rely on standard HTML tags. They

The first of the TrueDoc-enabled authoring tools, HexWeb Typograph, is available from HexMac. You cannot create pages using dynamic fonts without a special Dynamic Font tool.

How Dynamic Fonts Work in Web Browsers

To view dynamic fonts, you need a TrueDoc-enabled browser, such as Netscape Communicator 4.01 (or later).

Dynamic fonts are downloaded with an HTML page, the same way as GIF and JPEG images are. A browser that can display TrueDoc font files, such as Netscape Communicator, renders the fonts on the screen (or on a printer). Browsers that cannot display TrueDoc fonts use alternate fonts on the user's system.

For Web Authors: How to Use Dynamic Fonts

If you are creating web pages and want to use dynamic fonts, you need a TrueDoc-enabled authoring tool, as stated above.

With such a web authoring tool, you can specify dynamic fonts in one of two ways: 1. Use FONT FACE tags within your HTML document to specify your fonts, and use a LINK tag to associate your HTML document with the PFR that the authoring tool generates.

2. Use a Cascading Style Sheet to specify your fonts, which includes the URL for the source of the font data (the PFR that the authoring tool generates).

For System Administrators: How to Declare a TrueDoc PFR MIME Type

In order for users to download and view TrueDoc PFRs from their TrueDoc-enabled web browsers, system administrators must set up their web servers to recognize the PFR MIME type. Click here to get more information about the Server settings.