CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cssfonts
Jacob Deitloff
Jacob Deitloff

Reputation: 63

CSS: font-family, if not one font, then none at all

So, I know that this isn't something that is normally a good idea for a website, but I have a special purpose/intent for such a use:

I have a multilingual dictionary that I'm working with online, where I need one of the languages to be in a specific font, from a file that I specify locally. However, I want this language to be rendered ONLY in this font, as if it is rendered using any other font, it will render incorrectly. That's all fine and dandy, and I can load the file in CSS and whatnot.

But I want to make it so that if it can't load that file, either for one reason or another, or something goes wrong, it can't go to another font. Basically, render this text using this font, and if you can't do that, don't just try and render it with Arial or whatever is the default -- show me blocks, show me a stark something.

I've spent a bit looking around, but am not sure what in CSS I would be using for this. Suggestions/help? Thanks :)

Upvotes: 6

Views: 3111

Answers (4)

RiZKiT
RiZKiT

Reputation: 2511

As an update to this question, since April 2013 there exists the Adobe Blank Font, which can be used for that purpose.

You may build a cross-browser css with FontQuirrel WebfontGenerator and the Adobe Blank font files.

If you just need the font in OpenType format you can use this single css file with the already embedded font

Upvotes: 5

Dan Dascalescu
Dan Dascalescu

Reputation: 151684

Another solution is somehow specify the content to be empty. For example, I'm trying to override the +/- character that a Webix tree displays using Font Awesome:

#lhn-tree-container  .webix_tree_open:before {
    content: '';
}

This only works with the :before and :after pseudo-elements though.

Upvotes: 0

dmackerman
dmackerman

Reputation: 2966

There is no "don't render fonts" option. It's a font, it needs to be rendered, or else it's hidden visually in the DOM.

You could use Javascript to find out the font being applied to a certain block, and if it's not the font you want, just hide it. Or display a message.

Upvotes: 0

animuson
animuson

Reputation: 54757

You can't do this. Text is text and text has to have a font that it is to be rendered in. If you really want, there's probably some weird JavaScript function that can detect the actual font being used for the text and if it doesn't match the one you want, then you can hide it or something. But in the end, your only option is to have the text displayed in some obscure font, or completely hide the text. If the text is visible, it has to be rendered using some font.

You could also theoretically create your own font where all the characters are just blank, but that seems highly illogical and such a waste of resources to make people download a font just so it can display meaningless emptiness.

Upvotes: 3

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