Fonts in Website Tonight

You may have noticed a limited number of fonts available with Website Tonight. For many people this is disappointing because they envisioned their website with a nice calligraphy or some other fancy font. What most people don’t realize is that the Website Tonight fonts are limited for a reason, and you can still use fancy fonts on your website – keep reading to learn how.

When a computer is made there are only a few different fonts installed by default. Because there are no universal guidelines as to which fonts computer manufacturers are allowed use as the defaults each manufacturer independently chooses what fonts they will install. This creates a problem.

Problem with Fonts

Let’s say I have a font called “WST Rocks” on my computer and I use this font when writing you a letter. When I’m all done I attach my letter to an email and send it to you. On your end everything will seem normal at first, that is, until you open my letter. Since your computer does not have the font “WST Rocks” it doesn’t know how to display the characters (letters and numbers) I’ve typed, so instead it displays symbols (or blank space). Everything might have looked great on my computer, but unless your computer also has the “WST Rocks” font you won’t be able to see it.

The Internet works the same way. If you build your website using a font that is not on my computer then when I go to your website the letters won’t show up correctly, or at all. This is why Website Tonight limits your font selection. The fonts available in Website Tonight are the fonts that all computer manufacturers install on a new computer by default. There are no rules that force them to install these fonts, but over the years these fonts have become standardized in the industry.

Solutions for Website Tonight

You might be thinking, “But I’ve seen other websites using non standard fonts”. You are correct. There are several different ways to still use fancy fonts on a website. Many of these techniques are extremely advanced, require a high level of technical skill, and will take days to work out. The easiest way to use the font of your choice in your Website Tonight is to make an image of it.

Image Fonts

Rather than typing my website title in the title block I can use an art program to write my website title with any font I want. Once I’m happy with how it looks I can save it and upload it to my Website Tonight project. Now I have the font I want on my website and everyone can see it, but there are two problems that arise from this method.

1. Transparency

   The background color behind your font needs to match the background color where you are inserting the image or it will look cheesy. Most art programs will allow you to save your image as a .PNG or .GIF with a transparent background. That quickly solves this problem.
   
   **If you need help making the background of your image transparent then contact us. Be sure to include the name of the font you are trying to use if you know it. If we can find the font as a free download then we often provide this service for free.

2. Search Engine Visibility

   When you type something in an image it becomes invisible to the search engines. When the search engines scan your website they will see that an image is there and know how big it is, but they can’t read the words in the image. For that reason you want to try to use a standard font whenever possible, especially with important text like page titles.