SyntaxFix

[css] Why should we include ttf, eot, woff, svg,... in a font-face

Answer in 2019:

Only use WOFF2, or if you need legacy support, WOFF. Do not use any other format

(svg and eot are dead formats, ttf and otf are full system fonts, and should not be used for web purposes)

Original answer from 2012:

In short, font-face is very old, but only recently has been supported by more than IE.

  • eot is needed for Internet Explorers that are older than IE9 - they invented the spec, but eot was a proprietary solution.

  • ttf and otf are normal old fonts, so some people got annoyed that this meant anyone could download expensive-to-license fonts for free.

  • Time passes, SVG 1.1 adds a "fonts" chapter that explains how to model a font purely using SVG markup, and people start to use it. More time passes and it turns out that they are absolutely terrible compared to just a normal font format, and SVG 2 wisely removes the entire chapter again.

  • Then, woff gets invented by people with quite a bit of domain knowledge, which makes it possible to host fonts in a way that throws away bits that are critically important for system installation, but irrelevant for the web (making people worried about piracy happy) and allows for internal compression to better suit the needs of the web (making users and hosts happy). This becomes the preferred format.

  • 2019 edit A few years later, woff2 gets drafted and accepted, which improves the compression, leading to even smaller files, along with the ability to load a single font "in parts" so that a font that supports 20 scripts can be stored as "chunks" on disk instead, with browsers automatically able to load the font "in parts" as needed, rather than needing to transfer the entire font up front, further improving the typesetting experience.

If you don't want to support IE 8 and lower, and iOS 4 and lower, and android 4.3 or earlier, then you can just use WOFF (and WOFF2, a more highly compressed WOFF, for the newest browsers that support it.)

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

Support for woff can be checked at http://caniuse.com/woff
Support for woff2 can be checked at http://caniuse.com/woff2

Examples related to css

• need to add a class to an element • Using Lato fonts in my css (@font-face) • Please help me convert this script to a simple image slider • Why there is this "clear" class before footer? • How to set width of mat-table column in angular? • Center content vertically on Vuetify • bootstrap 4 file input doesn't show the file name • Bootstrap 4: responsive sidebar menu to top navbar • Stylesheet not loaded because of MIME-type • Force flex item to span full row width

Examples related to font-face

• Using Lato fonts in my css (@font-face) • Specifying Font and Size in HTML table • Why does this "Slow network detected..." log appear in Chrome? • How can I fix the 'Missing Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) Response Header' webfont issue? • Using custom fonts using CSS? • Right mime type for SVG images with fonts embedded • Why should we include ttf, eot, woff, svg,... in a font-face • Using fonts with Rails asset pipeline • Applying a single font to an entire website with CSS • Use multiple custom fonts using @font-face?

Examples related to webfonts

• How can I fix the 'Missing Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) Response Header' webfont issue? • Vertical alignment of text and icon in button • Webfont Smoothing and Antialiasing in Firefox and Opera • Add custom icons to font awesome • Why should we include ttf, eot, woff, svg,... in a font-face • How do I install a custom font on an HTML site • Use multiple @font-face rules in CSS • How to make Google Fonts work in IE?