Anyone installed Google Webfonts on their own server?

HTML & CSS
1

Hi,

I want to use one of the Google web fonts on my new site. Google says that web fonts can be donwloaded and installed on your own server. I believe this option will be faster than linking to Google web fonts api, that’s why I want to download the font and install it on my site. I checked the guide but couldn’t figure out what to do with the downloaded file (.woff). Do you know how to use it?

Thanks.

2

Hi,

I assume you would need to upload the relevant font-files and use the @font-face routines in the usual (convoluted way).

Font-squirell will convert the fonts into a usable format if you don’t have all the variations and give you the code and files you need to use.

I would argue that your servers will not be as quick as Google’s servers anyway and you may miss out if users already have those google files cached.

3

Paul thanks for the link and suggestion. Fontsquirrel doesnt see .woff file. I guess I will forget about installing it on my site and just link to Google api as you said.

Still, it would be good to hear from someone who actually installed one of the Google Web fonts to his website.

4

I would also suggest that if you are using Google fonts, just use their one line of code in your head and let them serve up the fonts.

But as Paul said, I would also recommend using FontSquirrel instead. If that site has the same font as the one you are using, you can download all of the font versions and CSS you need to get started straight away.

A .woff file on its own is not enough for fonts to work, as you need various versions of a font for it to work in all browsers. If Google only provided you with a .woff file, it might explain why I can never get Google fonts to work in all browsers. I found it so annoying that I gave up on Google fonts altogether.

5

Thanks Ralph. I skipped Google web fonts because there are a lot more and nice fonts on FontSquirrel. I easily installed one of them on my site and I like it. One small issue is that the font looks smooth on Firefox and IE but not as smooth on Chrome and Safari. Is there anything I can do with this or do I have to bear with it?

6

Hi,

It’s likely to either be that the free font is not as well constructed as the normal embedded fonts or simply down to browser differences.

If its on a mac then this link might help.