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zoran

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jun 30, 2005
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125
Are there free webfonts and if so are there any limitations to them? Can they be used in apps like MailChimp?
 

zoran

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jun 30, 2005
4,721
125
But why does MCimp give the ability to use web fonts and at the same time do not recommend them?
 

Slartibart

macrumors 68030
Aug 19, 2020
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2,596
There are some reasons, e.g. using multiple web fonts can incur a significant performance cost; web fonts need to be loaded before text is rendered so that users can view content on a page.
However, the browser only becomes aware of web fonts after the HTML is loaded and the CSS files are parsed. This can take time and depending on design, there could be multiple web fonts that need to be loaded, which can delay your page load.
Using web fonts often requires multiple requests to function properly. This includes multiple font families with different weights depending on CSS attributes, styles, languages - all that can quickly add to the total size.
Depending on which web font you use, it may require validation of your licence to ensure you are authorised to use the font.
There is an additional performance overhead because they are typically downloaded from a third-party server. Connecting to a third-party server/domain is always costly, it involves new DNS lookups, SSL connection times, reliance on the third-party server performance, and potential bottlenecking if requests to a large number of separate third-party servers are required to load a page.
 

zoran

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jun 30, 2005
4,721
125
This can take time and depending on design, there could be multiple web fonts that need to be loaded, which can delay your page load.
I am wondering if it’s just two web fonts that i will need will that still be an issue?
 
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Slartibart

macrumors 68030
Aug 19, 2020
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I am wondering if it’s just two web fonts that i will need will that still be an issue?
As already ask - what exactly do you want to do? You can download e.g. Google Fonts and use them locally, but if you design something like a newsletter, everything commented so far will apply.
 
Last edited:
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MacGizmo

macrumors 68040
Apr 27, 2003
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Arizona
The problem with custom fonts in email is that it's dependent on the receiving user's email app settings. There are a ton of email apps in use out there, and many people have custom font settings in their app that overrides anything you have coded in your email anyway.

The only fonts you can be sure will render correctly are the standard web fonts like Georgia, Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman, Trebuchet, etc. Even MS's new default font, Aptos, will only work if the receiver has Microsoft products installed - which believe it or not, is not always the case anymore.
 
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