CSS @font-face Tests: Technical Notes

In the texts below, Hebrew letters are written per the Unicode standard: in letters with diacritics including a dagesh (dot) and niqud (vowel), the dagesh is typed before other diacritics. Without the precedence of the dagesh, vowel positioning in some browsers and text editors will be rendered incorrectly for many Hebrew fonts. For example, here is a comparison of the letter shin with its dagesh positioned correctly and incorrectly.

(correct)   (incorrect).

This is described in some detail (from the font developer's perspective) in the SBL Hebrew font manual, p8 and Appendix B (see SBL, "SBL Hebrew User Manual" [pdf]). Also, note the differences between Unicode normalization and the typing order recommended for Ezra SIL font (see SIL "Keying in Hebrew" [pdf]). (Much thanks to Efraim Feinstein for this information.)

In the pangram used in the following tests, all fonts displayed with CSS @font-face in the TTF file format are the original TTF fonts distributed by their respective font foundry. They have not been processed by an online font converter (e.g. Font Squirrel).

Some browsers, (e.g. Internet Explorer) depend on other file formats to display fonts using CSS @font-face. WOFF, EOT, and SVG file formats of the Miriam CLM (Culmus Project) and EzraSIL SR (SIL) fonts were prepared using the Font Squirrel fontface generator.

Click here for more details on unicode Hebrew and free/libre licensed fonts. Miriam CLM was created by Maxim Iorsh for the Culmus Project and is licensed GPL. Ezra SIL is a font created by SIL International and is licensed OFL.

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