Font Table Access
Gives web applications access to table data stored within local fonts, allowing those fonts to be rendered within their applications.
Font table access is a missing capability that has prevented modern web apps from making full use of the web platform. Professional design apps that need pixel-identical text rendering across platforms use libraries such as HarfBuzz and FreeType compiled to WASM to accomplish this. For design apps built for the web that want to use local fonts, they currently require users upload their fonts to a server and from there send the font's raw bytes to their client app for handling by the text shaping libraries. In other cases, web apps ask users to install a separate local program that provides additional capabilities like font enumeration and offers local font table data to the app. The font table access API will let a web app get access to a local font's table data to allow interacting with the fonts in a way that doesn't require these workarounds.
Documentation
Specification
Status in Chromium
In development (tracking bug)
Consensus & Standardization
- No public signals
- No public signals
- No public signals
- Strongly positive
Owners
Last updated on 2020-04-03
Comments
An earlier version of this API was discussed here: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/blink-dev/G-hC66MRTso/uVrmHV0NAwAJ It has since been updated based on feedback from experts. This version of the API takes into account and reflects that feedback.