fontsource VS fontfaceobserver

Fontsource[0] is also an easy way to self-host variable fonts via NPM packages.

[0] https://fontsource.org/?variable=true

A few years ago, while I was still in high school, I began learning how to create websites purely for fun. One thing I found to be tedious was self-hosting fonts, with existing solutions to improve it completely abandoned. Consequently, I decided to learn a bit more about JavaScript by rewriting and improving these abandoned projects which led to the creation of Fontsource[0].

This project has undoubtedly set of a series of impactful events in my life, and I attribute many of my successes to it. I've had opportunities to network with numerous amazing engineers through it, leading to a part-time role and multiple internships. Companies that approached me for support also wanted to keep in touch! I also graduate this year and I am going with a full-time role from one of the aforementioned internships.

While I acknowledge my circumstances are extremely fortunate, I genuinely believe that having open source projects early on in your career can significantly contribute to standing out as a developer.

[0] https://fontsource.org

Tip: more privacy friendly Google alternatives are available and super easy to use: https://fontsource.org/

I switched most of my sites to use it and I’ve been quite happy so far.

No need to leak data to Google.

For weirder stuff (e.g. https://tidings.potato.horse) I use sites like dafont.com and convert fonts using Font Squirrel.

Fontsource publishes all Google Fonts fonts as NPM packages, allowing you to easily import them with modern bundlers.

I personally like using FontSource for this, they have some extra fonts beyond Google Fonts too

I stumbled upon fontsource.org the other day and I found the idea of installing fonts from npm packages appealing.

To do this with SvelteKit, you can use the Fontsource project. They host all of the Google Fonts catalogue as NPM packages.

As for the flash of fallback fonts that occurs before the used google fonts are fully loaded (also known as FOUT or flash of unstyled text / type), one simple solution is to hide the root layout's content on init by wrapping everything in an element and hiding it or by displaying a "loading..." overlay. Then, all you have to do is detect when the webfonts are loaded, using something like FontFaceObserver, to reveal your app by updating the variable your wrapper's css class or the overlay element's display is bound to.

✗ https://github.com/bramstein/fontfaceobserver 456 KB

Another method, though involves more code but can work across all browsers involve the use of an external library called FontFaceObserver. To make this work, you have to;

Github

I wrote about loading a variable font that uses FontFaceObserver. This can be used to optimize your font loading.

I am not familiar with ePUB but you could use something like FontFaceObserver to do this pretty easily: