Comparison of layout engines (web typography) Informatics Engineering 464 pasar.pts-ptn.net

The following tables compare support for different font formats and support for CSS3 font resources for a number of layout engines. Web fonts were initially defined (but later dropped) from CSS2, then added into CSS3. The specification is supported by an increasing number of web browsers.^[1]^[2]

1 Explanation of the tables
- 1.1 Engine nomenclature
- 1.2 Values
2 Support for CSS font resources
3 Support in HTML and XML documents
4 Support in SVG documents
5 Smart font features support
6 See also
7 Notes
8 References

Explanation of the tables

Engine nomenclature

Rather than the names of web browsers, the names of the underlying engines are used. The browsers that use the various engines are listed below.

Layout engine	Release version	Preview version	Used by
Amaya	11.3.1	11.3-pre	Amaya
Gecko	19.0	20.0	All Mozilla software, including Firefox; SeaMonkey and Galeon; Camino; K-Meleon; Flock (up to 2.x); Debian IceWeasel; GNU IceCat (formerly GNU IceWeasel); Icedove, Iceape and Iceowl; Fennec. Also used by the Maple platform in 2010 and 2011 Samsung "SmartTV" devices which are based on the build used in Firefox 3.0.
KHTML		N/A	Konqueror^†
Presto	2.10.229	2.10.238	Opera; Opera Mobile, Nintendo DS & DSi Browser; Internet Channel
Tasman	(IE 5.2.3 for Mac)	none (aborted in 2003)	Internet Explorer 5+ for Mac OS X
Trident	6.0 (IE 10)	6.0 (IE 10)	Internet Explorer and other Internet Explorer shells like Maxthon (Microsoft Windows operating systems only), Windows Phone 8
WebKit	534.20	r146740	Tizen (both OS and browser), Safari (both desktop and mobile), Google Chrome, Maxthon 3, Shiira, iCab 4, OmniWeb 5.5+, Web, Adobe AIR, Midori, Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 and CS5, Android browser, Palm webOS browser, Symbian S60 browser, OWB, Steam, Rekonq, Arora, Flock (version 3+), RockMelt, Dolphin Browser, Sleipnir, Konqueror^†, rekonq. Used by the LG Smart TV platform to enable web content on TVs.

^† In Konqueror, the user can switch layout engine.

Values

Values indicate the level of support in the most recent version of the layout engine, or (if a version number is given) in the specified version. Version numbers without any other value indicate the version at which the layout engine first fully supported the feature.

Value	Meaning
Yes	Indicates that the layout engine fully supports this property/element when valid values are used.
No	Indicates that the property/element is completely ignored.
Partial	Indicates that the property/element is understood, but that not all values are supported. Supported values are implemented correctly.
Incorrect	Indicates that the property/element is understood, but that it is not implemented correctly in all cases.
Experimental	Indicates that the property/element is understood, but supported under an alternate name. May be incomplete or buggy.
Dropped	Indicates that the property/element is no longer supported.
Nightly build	Indicates that the property/element is supported to some extent in an experimental/nightly build. Future support is expected.
Depends	Indicates that the property/element is supported only on certain platforms, or if certain settings are configured.

Support for CSS font resources

Main article: Comparison of layout engines (Cascading Style Sheets)

CSS3 specified a mechanism for downloading and displaying fonts within a web page.^{[spec 1]} This table compare support for that mechanism. Note that Embedded OpenType (EOT)^{[spec 2]} font download does not bring in the entire OpenType font and therefore, the most prominent feature of Open Type, ligature support, does not come with EOT. Trident before version 5.0 supports only EOT. EOT is not sufficient for smartfonts that rely on ligatures.

		Trident^{[t 1]}	Gecko^{[g 1]}	WebKit^{[w 1]}	Presto^{[p 1]}^{[p 2]}
Grammar and rules
CSS3	`@font-face`	<3.1^{[IE 4.0]}	1.9.1	525^{[note 1]}	2.2
Descriptors
CSS3	`font-family`	<3.1^{[IE 4.0]}	1.9.1	525	2.2
	`src`	Partial^{[note 2]}
	`font-style`	<3.1^{[IE 4.0]}
	`font-weight`	<3.1^{[IE 4.0]}
	`font-stretch`	5.0^{[t 3]}	9.0^{[g 2]}	No^{[w 6]}	No
	`unicode-range`	5.0^{[t 3]}	No^{[g 3]}	Partial^{[note 3]}	No
	`font-variant`	No	No^{[g 4]}	No	No
	`font-feature-settings`	Developer preview^{[t 4]}	Experimental^{[g 5]}	No	No

Support in HTML and XML documents

This table compares support for font formats applied with the @font-face rule in HTML and XML documents.

Format	Trident	Gecko	WebKit	Presto
Embedded OpenType (EOT)^{[spec 2]}	<3.1^{[IE 4.0]}	No^{[g 6]}	No^{[w 8]}	No
TrueType (TTF)^{[spec 3]}	5.0^{[t 3]}	1.9.1	525	2.2
OpenType (OTF)^{[spec 4]}	5.0^{[t 3]}	1.9.1
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)^{[spec 5]}	No	No^{[g 7]}
Web Open Font Format (WOFF)^{[spec 6]}^{[spec 7]}	5.0^{[t 5]}	1.9.2	533^{[w 9]}^{[w 10]}^{[w 11]}	2.7

Support in SVG documents

This table compares support for font formats applied with the @font-face rule in SVG documents.

Format	Trident	Gecko^{[g 8]}	WebKit	Presto
Embedded OpenType (EOT)^{[spec 2]}	No	No^{[g 6]}	No^{[w 8]}	No
TrueType (TTF)^{[spec 3]}		Yes	Yes	2.2
OpenType (OTF)^{[spec 4]}		18.0	No
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)^{[spec 5]}		No^{[g 7]}	525
Web Open Font Format (WOFF)^{[spec 6]}^{[spec 7]}		No	No^{[w 9]}	2.7.81

Smart font features support

Format	Trident	Gecko	WebKit	Presto
OpenType `liga` ligatures^{[spec 8]}	No	2.0	Partial^{[w 12]}	No
OpenType `rlig` ligatures^{[spec 9]}	No		No	No
ZWNJ and ZWJ (Unicode characters used for ligature control)	Yes		Yes	No^{[p 3]}

Notes

^ Prior to version 4.0, Google Chrome had font support disabled.^{[w 2]}^{[w 3]}^{[w 4]}^{[w 5]}
^ Doesn't understand the format() or local() identifiers.^{[t 2]}
^ Doesn't understand multiple, comma-separated ranges.^{[w 7]}

References

Specifications

^ CSS Fonts Module Level 3 - Font resources, W3C, http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-fonts/#font-resources
^ ^a ^b ^c Nelson, Paul (2008-03-05), Embedded OpenType (EOT) File Format, Microsoft, Monotype Imaging, http://www.w3.org/Submission/EOT/
^ ^a ^b TrueType Reference Manual, Apple, http://developer.apple.com/textfonts/TTRefMan/index.html
^ ^a ^b OpenType specification, Microsoft, http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/
^ ^a ^b Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Specification - Fonts, W3C, http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/fonts.html
^ ^a ^b Kew, Jonathan; Leming, Tal; van Blokland, Erik (2010-04-08), WOFF File Format 1.0, W3C, Mozilla, Type Supply, LettError, http://www.w3.org/Submission/WOFF/
^ ^a ^b Kew, Jonathan; Leming, Tal; van Blokland, Erik (2009-10-23), WOFF File Format, Mozilla, Type Supply, LettError, http://people.mozilla.com/~jkew/woff/woff-spec-latest.html
^ OpenType Layout tag registry, Tag: 'liga', Microsoft, http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/features_ko.htm#liga
^ OpenType Layout tag registry, Tag: 'rlig', Microsoft, http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/features_pt.htm#rlig

Trident references

^ About Font Embedding, Microsoft, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms530303(VS.85).aspx
^ @font-face support in Internet Explorer, http://webfonts.info/wiki/index.php?title=@font-face_support_in_Internet_Explorer
^ ^a ^b Internet Explorer Platform Preview Guide for Developers, Microsoft, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/ff468705.aspx
^ Galineau, Sylvain (2012-). "CSS Corner: Using the Whole Font". IEBlog. Microsoft. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/01/09/css-corner-using-the-whole-font.aspx.
^ Galineau, Sylvain (2010-04-23), Meet WOFF, The Standard Web Font Format, Microsoft, http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/23/meet-woff-the-standard-web-font-format.aspx

Gecko references

WebKit references

^ Hyatt, Dave (2007-10-03), Downloadable Fonts, Apple, http://webkit.org/blog/124/downloadable-fonts/
^ Issue 9633: Disable web fonts by default, Google, 2009-04-01, http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=9633
^ Full pass of acid3 - Chromium-dev, Google, 2009-07-03, http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev/browse_thread/thread/c3b3db4339d3642c/c0040c5d39cfa1db?pli=1
^ Issue 17818: Enabled dynamic / web font support in a secure manner, Google, 2009-07-27, http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=17818
^ Irish, Paul (2010-01-25), Chrome and @font-face: It's here!, http://paulirish.com/2009/chrome-and-font-face-a-summary/
^ Bug 12530 - CSS3: Support the font-stretch property, WebKit, https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12530
^ @font-face support in Safari, http://webfonts.info/wiki/index.php?title=@font-face_support_in_Safari
^ ^a ^b Bug 20542 - Adding EOT Font Rendering capability, WebKit, https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20542
^ ^a ^b Bug 31302 - Add WOFF support for @font-face, WebKit, https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31302
^ Bug 38217 - [chromium] Add WOFF support, WebKit, https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38217
^ Irish, Paul (2010-08-02), Quick Guide to Implement Webfonts via @font-face, HTML5Rocks, http://www.html5rocks.com/tutorials/webfonts/quick/
^ On Safari, ligatures may be switched on with the CSS setting text-rendering, but then, they are used indiscriminately even when letter-spacing is increased (see Fraktur letterspacing); on Google Chrome, ligatures do not work.

Presto references

^ Mills, Chris (2008-12-04), Opera Presto 2.2 and Opera 10 — a first look, Opera, http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/presto-2-2-and-opera-10-a-first-look/
^ Seven Web Fonts showcases, Opera, 2009-09-01, http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/seven-web-fonts-showcases/
^ When letter-spacing is increased, these characters are spacing.

Other references

^ Kimler, Scott (2009-07-04), Cross Browser Font Embedding with the CSS3 @font-face selector, Randsco, http://randsco.com/index.php/2009/07/04/p680
^ @font-face browser support, http://webfonts.info/wiki/index.php?title=%40font-face_browser_support

Layout engines

Actively developed layout engines	Amaya Gecko KHTML Prince Trident WebKit

Inactive layout engines	Boxely Gazelle GtkHTML HTMLayout iCab Mariner Presto Tasman Tkhtml

Comparison of layout engines	HTML non-standard HTML HTML5 media canvas XML XHTML 1.1 MathML SVG CSS ECMAScript DOM Graphics Typography

Typography terminology

Page

Column
Canons of page construction
Margin
Page numbering
Pagination
Pull quote
Recto and verso

Paragraph

Alignment
Justification
Leading
River
Sentence spacing
Widows and orphans

Character

Typeface anatomy	Counter Diacritics Dingbat Glyph Initial Kerning Letter-spacing Ligature Subscript and superscript Swash Text figures

Capitalization	Letter case Small caps CamelCase Petite caps All caps

Vertical aspects	Ascender Descender Baseline Cap height Median Overshoot x-height

Classifications

Roman type	Antiqua (Old Style) Transitional Didone (Modern) Serif Slab serif Sans-serif Script

Blackletter type	Textualis Rotunda Schwabacher Fraktur

Gaelic type	Angular Uncial

Punctuation

Dashes
Hanging punctuation
Hyphenation
Quotation mark
Prime mark

Typesetting

Calligraphy
ETAOIN SHRDLU
Font
- Computer font
Font catalog
Letterpress
Lorem ipsum
Movable type
Pangram
Phototypesetting
Punchcutting
Type design
Typeface
Type foundry
Microtypography

Typographic units

Point
Pica
Cicero
Em
En
Figure space
Thin space
Paren space
Agate
Measure

Digital typography

Font formats
Typesetting software
Character encoding
Rasterization
Hinting

Comparison of layout engines (web typography)

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