Please help - problem with fonts!

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elena
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Please help - problem with fonts!

Post by elena »

Hi everyone!
I've recently revamped my website and have come across a problem.

Underneath the main heading " Domaine des Crouquets" I have sub headings eg "Cottages in rural France", "French holiday cottages" etc. The fonts I've used for these and some other text in the site are Fine Hand & Palace Script. I know they're not universal fonts and that some people may see them differently to me but so far apart from my home computer & my sister I've yet to find someone here who sees it like me. I've been checking with browser shots too, so far with no success.

I like the feel of the contrast in the headings ( Fancy script against block letters) so I'm reluctant to change to a standard font but obviously I can't leave it the way it is. On my friend's computer it looked terrible with some pages worse than others.

I understand that you won't know exactly what I'm seeing but would be grateful if you could spare a bit of time to let me know your general first impression of the site, the sub heading fonts in particular.
Thanks for any feedback!
Elena
www.lescrouquets.net
Last edited by elena on Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

seems ok to us..... but at the moment we cannot upload to the web as we don't have time..hopefully later tonight.
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greenfrog
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Post by greenfrog »

Hi Elena,

In my IE7, your sub-heads are overlapping slightly with your main strap.

Also, all your initial Fs seem to have a character space after them before the rest of the word. In some cases, it's because the rest is in italics. And your Ds overlap. It looks strange and untidy.

Your "Vist the Dordogne" strap is all over the place - three different levels.

I like the idea of a sub-head but I confess I don't like how they look - the formatting is not working. (I don't know how to do screen shots to show you, sorry!)
Lounging on the lily pad...
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

Ok this is what I see with your first page. The link will be here for a few weeks so hopefully you can confirmations as to if this view is what other responders see.

http://www.ribeirasacra.com/temp/website.jpg

On this PC there is no Fine Hand font but there is two versions of Palace Script. One is a bolder version than the other.
Fonts on website only appear as scripted if the PC has those fonts in the system. If you want fancy fonts then I have read the only way to include them on any web site is use Flash. However some folks have this turned off. I do to stop adverts distracting me.

Maybe some one has a better idea of how to include fonts.
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

PS just done a quick web search for Find Hand font, I cannot find a site where it is free. So the chances of folks browsing your web site with this font is minimal. Maybe time to choose something else, similar and preferably free!
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greenfrog
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Post by greenfrog »

Having seen Ian & Irene's screenshot, I can confirm I don't see the same font. On mine it's a straightforward serif font.
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elena
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Post by elena »

Hi Irene, Ian & Greenfrog!
Thanks for taking the time to look.

I've been immersed all evening in fonts, free & otherwise and have slowly accepted that for now the best thing is to stick to
what I know will work for the majority of people. After all, even if I chose a free font, there are just so many out there that it would still be a stab in the dark.

I'm sure that if someone doesn't have the fonts on their PC it automatically defaults to something like Arial or Times Roman and I think the big difference in the sizes of the fonts I was using caused the problem. So I'm now facing a busy weekend changing all the pages yet again - you live and learn!!

Apparently it can be done by creating banners with a paint programme and then resizing it & treating it like an image - that didn't work either. In the meantime if anyone does know of any tricks of the trade which could help , please do let us know!!

Thanks again,
Elena
www.lescrouquets.net
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

I have just found this website, which allows you to play around with fonts and obtain the CCS style...maybe this will help, I need to play with this to see if it does what it says on the tin.
http://www.fonttester.com/


Greenfrog, sorry I should have answered your question about how to get screen shots.
To save simply press the "print screen" key. Open your photo editing programme and paste from clipboard. Yo should see it. But if not then when you have opened the photo editing prog. Then open a new document and then paste in what you have captured with the ps-key.
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greenfrog
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Post by greenfrog »

Ian and Irene - thanks for the tip re screenshots! It works! Happy me! :lol:
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kevsboredagain
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Post by kevsboredagain »

For fancy fonts like that which most people won't have, you could always consider making them images. GIF would be best to get the transparency you'd need.

It is also possible to load them with your page although I've not tried it.
http://www.ssi-developer.net/design/embed-font.shtml

The above says it's not supported in Firefox so I would be reluctant to use something like like that.
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elena
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Post by elena »

For fancy fonts like that which most people won't have, you could always consider making them images.
Thanks. I've already had a go at turning making them into images but to be honest it didn't seem that simple -to me anyway. Is there an easy way to do this? I would need to see only the writing with no back ground.

Elena
www.lescrouquets.net
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

elena wrote:
For fancy fonts like that which most people won't have, you could always consider making them images.
Thanks. I've already had a go at turning making them into images but to be honest it didn't seem that simple -to me anyway. Is there an easy way to do this? I would need to see only the writing with no back ground.

Elena
www.lescrouquets.net
What photo editing programme are you using?
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elena
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Post by elena »

Hi Irene & Ian!

We've got Adobe photoshop elements, Microsoft photo editor and I also use Picasa but I have to say my knowledge of them is far from extensive!

Elena
www.lescrouquets.net
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kevsboredagain
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Post by kevsboredagain »

Perhaps someone with one of your programs could help with the steps but the general idea with any editor could be...

Create a new picture. Make it large eg. 5000x5000 or even more and with a white background
Play around with writing your text on this. Make notes of the font sizes etc as you'll keep this drawing and go back to it again and again.
When you have some text you want, select the area around it and copy. Paste this selection as a new image.
Save the new image in GIF format.
Set the white background on the new image to be the transparent color and save again.

Save your big picture with all your efforts for future work
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

Our approach to this would be a bit different to Kev. Neither of the suggestions are wrong it is just a matter of how you wish to work.

Here is our suggestion.
Open a new document, size it to a bit larger than what you need. This is because it is easy to trim the document once completed but it is normally harder to enlarge any document later on.
Set the background to transparent or invisible. Place your text, using the font you want. At this stage you can play around with the results to find something pleasing. Do not forget to centre align the text in the document. If the document is too large (size wise) then trim so that the border is just a few pixels around the text.
You can save the document to whatever file type you want. But GIFs are quite large, when compared with JPEGs.
Now all you have to do is place them in the correct location on your website/page. Don’t forget to add alternative text in case the user cannot load the file for some reason.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
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