Intent to Implement: WOFF 2.0 (improved font compression)

[Kenji Baheux]

Primary eng/PM emails

ksak...@chromium.org, kenji...@chromium.org

Spec

https://font-compression-reference.googlecode.com/git/docs/WOFFUltraCondensedfileformat.pdf

Summary

WOFF 2.0 significantly improves font compression. We are seeing gains above 20% on average with peaks above 50% in particular for the larger fonts such as those typically used by CJK languages.

Motivation

By making webfonts smaller, we can deliver them faster. This is obviously a good thing in itself for many different reasons but it will also help reducing things like the dreaded Flash of unstyled text (FOUT). 

FOUT occurs when a fallback font is used until the the actual webfont is received. On some browsers, the fallback font is used from the get go which results in FOUT no matter how fast the webfont is delivered.

So far, web developers have been forced to implement workarounds or reconsider using webfonts altogether in order to keep their website and apps sleek.

We believe that WOFF 2.0 will move the needle in favor of aligning to a common webfont handling where the UA will wait on the webfont for a reasonable amount of time and then revert to the temporary fallback font trick. This should make FOUT an edge case at best and help web developers focus on more important things.

Compatibility Risk

By providing a behind the flag working implementation we believe that we can accelerate the adoption of WOFF 2.0 across browsers.  The fallback mechanism to specify alternate webfonts in different formats already exists. The worst that could happen would be for the UA to eventually give up and revert to a local font.

In conclusion, we don’t believe that introducing a new font format would create a significant compatibility risk in this particular setup.

Ongoing technical constraints

None.

Will this feature be supported on all five Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS and Android)?

Yes.

OWP launch tracking bug?

crbug.com/242809

Row on feature dashboard?

Yes.

Requesting approval to ship?

No.

--
Kenji BAHEUX

Product Manager - Chrome

Google Japan

[TAMURA, Kent]

> Spec

> https://font-compression-reference.googlecode.com/git/docs/WOFFUltraCondensedfileformat.pdf

Do you have a plan to submit this to a standard body?

--
TAMURA Kent
Software Engineer, Google

[Kenji Baheux]

Yes.

If I am not mistaken it's on the w3c Web Fonts WG charter: http://www.w3.org/2012/06/WebFonts/charter-2012.html (through end of May 2015).

2013/5/23 TAMURA, Kent <tk...@chromium.org>

[TAMURA, Kent]

Thanks!   LGTM to implement.

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 1:23 AM, Kenji Baheux <kenji...@google.com> wrote:
> 2013/5/23 TAMURA, Kent <tk...@chromium.org>

>> Do you have a plan to submit this to a standard body?
>

> Yes.
>
> If I am not mistaken it's on the w3c Web Fonts WG charter:
> http://www.w3.org/2012/06/WebFonts/charter-2012.html (through end of May
> 2015).

Yup, it's the main deliverable of the WebFonts WG now, and has been
aggressively pursued through that group the entire time.

~TJ