Embedded fonts and Memory issues

Serving fonts from webserver using CSS can take up memory

[noumaan204]

I wanted to ask that if I serve webfonts embedded in my css and hosted on my server the same server where i have my blog where I am using this css. Will it create memory issues for my site

for example this in the css

@import url( 'css/reset.css' );
@font-face {
font-family: extrafine;
src: url('http://example.com/fonts/extrafine.ttf');
}
@font-face {
font-family: deja-light;
src: url('http://example.comfonts/deja-light.ttf');
}
@font-face {
font-family: deja-bold;
src: url('http://example.com/fonts/deja-bold.ttf');
}
@font-face {
font-family: BRI293;
src: url('http://example.com/fonts/BRI293.ttf');
}
@font-face {
font-family: GrutchShaded;
src: url('http://example.com/fonts/GrutchShaded.ttf');

My site is having memory issues and I wanted to know could these fonts be the issue?

[lucy24]

Sorry to do this, but when you say "memory" do you mean "bandwidth"? Any extra memory load should be happening at the user's end, where the browser is balancing five font files on top of everything else the site has thrown at it.

Are you using the complete font files with the full repertoire (here I'm particularly apprehensive about the "deja" pair, if that means DejaVu), or edited versions specific to your site?

[noumaan204]

yes these are deja vu fonts unedited and served from my webserver.

By memory I mean since I am on dreamhosts VPS it has memory alloted to each server mine is 300mb

[lucy24]

Heh. I know them. Fortunately I don't have anything server-side so the change to unlimited diskspace and bandwidth was great for me :)

If I understand embedded fonts, they don't involve any server-side work at all. The user-- that is, the unsuspecting human user's browser-- downloads them just as they'd download an image, and from there on it's got nothing to do with you.

But I gotta ask: The various forms of DejaVu are, individually, very large font files. Not as jaw-droppingly immense as the ones containing the whole CJK block, but definitely up there. (Based on Sort By Size and rough eyeballing, about ten times as big as your average-- median, not mean-- font file.) The character design is intentionally pretty generic, and I'm pretty sure it's standard with the Windows OS. Do you really need it?

:: wandering off to investigate Extrafine and Grutch ::

:: returning ::

Well, you definitely can't describe the other three as "generic" :)

I should be used to it by now, but it sure is unnerving to enter a font name into the g### search box and have this very thread-- age, less than two hours-- jump up in the #1 position :o

[noumaan204]

:)

Thank you lucy your answer cleared my doubts

[penders]

lucy24: The various forms of DejaVu are... The character design is intentionally pretty generic, and I'm pretty sure it's standard with the Windows OS. Do you really need it?

Which are you saying are probably standard with Windows OS? The generic style or DejaVu in particular? DejaVu certainly isn't standard on Win XP or Vista.

[lucy24]

:: racking memory ::

OK, got it. Mental transposition arising out of discussion of shoddy Font Substitution in MSIE 8 for Linux. Not everything Microsoft is Windows. Oops.

I know DejaVu only as a full-spectrum Unicode font (it's third-party for me too), which is why I wondered if it's necessary. If the user doesn't have DejaVu they're bound to have some other sans-serif font that can do the job for a much smaller investment than 600K.

And, oops, I've been assuming DejaVu Sans because that's the one with the biggest character range. DejaVu Serif is not much smaller-- and just as interchangeable.