/Font-Falsehoods

Falsehoods programmers believe about fonts

Falsehoods programmers believe about fonts

This is a list of falsehoods programmers believe in. Got something to add? Please file an issue or tweet at @pixelambacht!

Excluded from this list are falsehoods that also live outside the programming world (e.g. "font" and "typeface" mean the same thing) or general falsehoods about typography (e.g. serif fonts are more legible than sans serif fonts).

The "falsehoods programmers believe"-format doesn't provide explanations and tries to pique your curiosity enough to do your own research. Regardless, I'll try to add explanations soon. If you want to know more or wonder why an item is on the list, tweet your questions at me!

  1. Fonts render the same everywhere
  2. Fonts should render the same everywhere
  3. Fonts given the same size (e.g. 16px) will look the same size
  4. Font size determines the line height
  5. Fonts are free
  6. Someone else will check the font license
  7. I can share the font with everyone on my project
  8. The fonts that came with my OS can be freely uploaded to my server
  9. All text will be rendered in the selected font
  10. All text will be in English/my language
  11. Users will never need characters that aren't in the font
  12. If a character isn't in a font, the system will do the right thing
  13. Font rendering is being taken care of by the OS
  14. Font rendering is being taken care of by the application itself
  15. All modern browsers support webfonts
  16. Fonts are a great way to deliver icons
  17. Fonts can be hosted on a CDN like other assets
  18. Hinting isn't needed anymore
  19. A .ttf file contains TrueType outlines
  20. An .otf file contains OpenType outlines
  21. You're allowed to subset any font
  22. You're allowed to modify any font
  23. WOFF and WOFF2 are font formats
  24. FOUT is unavoidable
  25. FOIT is unavoidable
  26. FOUT is a bug, not a feature
  27. Fonts will make your website slow
  28. Writing a @font-face rule is enough to properly deliver fonts
  29. Everyone has the same fallback fonts installed
  30. OpenType features like ligatures should always be on
  31. OpenType features like ligatures make any text better
  32. It's good practice to set an explicit font size regardless of user preferences
  33. Every glyph has the same codepoint in every font
  34. You can associate any glyph on screen with a character in the source text
  35. Fonts can be displayed in one single color
  36. Faux bold or italics, created by the browser, is the same as using actual bold or italic fonts
  37. Fonts are safe and pose no security threat
  38. You can render text by simply sticking glyphs next to each other
  39. Fonts can't have bugs, they're just a bunch of outlines
  40. Every glyph is exactly one character
  41. Every character is exactly one glyph
  42. A font will contain all styles and weights
  43. The "M" is one em wide