My Graphic Design Relies upon a Rare Font. I realize that if I use an uncommon font in my web design (CSS), it is possible, moreover probable that very few others will see what I see when they view my web site from home. What can I do to ensure that my Visitors will see my design as i envisoned it, with the style of my font intact?

Favorite Fonts and Readers From the Real World

All is not lost– all of those wonderfully cool, neato fonts you’ve spent all of that time downloading can still be used in your designs. However, you will have to use them in special places– probably where they belong anyway. How can you use them, and why the “special” places?

How to use an Image Editor (like photoshop) for Special Typography in your Web Pages

You’ll have to use an image editor like GIMP or Photoshop, or any program that will load your system fonts into an image for saving. If you ensure that the background / canvas of your image is transparent (using the “Alpha” channel) you can get away with overlaying the transparent background right over any part of your document, and it will appear as the text is actually in the code. it’s tricky, but once you get used to it, it’s not that difficult.

Note: in order for the image, fancy-font technique to work, you must save the text images as a .gif or .png– image files which support the alpha channel for the web. you should also note that IE doesn’t properly support the alpha channel of the .png file, so be careful using .png when you’re designing for the wonderful world of Internet Explorer. Depending upon how the transparent area is used, you may not have a problem w/ IE. your best bet is to simply try it out.

How-to: Using Text as Images to Preserve a Desired Design

Ready to try a new technique for using your favourite fonts in your web design? Ready to throw the rulebook out the window, and go for broke? Check out another article here at NoviceNotes.Net which serves as a tutorial on how to work with special fonts in images of text, how to manage contrasting background colors, and how to handle other text-heading related obstacles in your web design.

The AMPsoft.net Font Viewer

Before you get started on the tutorial at the URL above, I recommend you download a utility to supplement the basic font-viewer, standard with Windows. If you’re going to be browsing through a large group of Fonts, you’ll need a Font-viewer capable of helping you to categorize, preview, and decide upon which fonts you truly desire for your design.

Go get the AMPSoft.net Font Viewer– quite possibly the Best Font Browsing Tool Ever! Easily browse, sort, and manage your locally installed fonts with this handy software utility.