With all the talk about web fonts, I think it’s time I tried to outline the present situation. I’ve not attempted to do so before, owing to the complexity of some of the material, and the speed at which things are moving.
Web designers are generally not interested in technical specifications, TrueType Hinting instructions, and extended OpenType permissions tables. They have one pressing question: when can I use font x in my web pages? Today, in Atlanta, Georgia, at TypeCon 2009, the faithful met to talk about Web Font Embedding: The New State of the Debate. At the foot of this article, I’ve included highlights from the twitter feeds of @typographica (Stephen Coles) and @splorp (Grant Hutchinson). Many thanks to them for the great job they did in reporting.