Can you use Calibri on a website

robcub

robcub

Junior Member
Hello, I've been asked by a client to have the text on their website in Calibri. I wonder if anyone has had to do this before.

The client wants the site to have Calibri on iPads and iPads don't come with Calibri.

If you go on the Microsoft site http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/family.aspx?FID=287 the @fontface link takes you to the web fonts page at fonts.com - when you try to upload a copy of Calibri to FontFace it says Microsoft don't allow this.

(I would prefer FontFace to Cufon)
 
I'm going to start by saying that this is, for me at least, a highly confusing topic. The whole business, as a whole, of embedding fonts into digital applications is a relatively new process and the models of distribution are very much convoluted... You have a plethora of different usage licenses, one of which seems to be offered in a completely different way to the rest. I'm of course talking about embedding fonts into websites. The legality of what you can and can't do with fonts is different everywhere... it's quite annoying and I can't wait for the first company to offer a much simpler font service that caters for all usage scenarios....

Anyway, on to the solutions. You have three options:

1. Explain to your client that in order to do this you will need to pay a fee for using a premium, licensed font and then go to one of the font services that will charge you a monthly fee. (This is really for people who have a lot of clients and use fonts on a regular basis)

2. Embed the font into the website using CSS, without permission (not recommended, especially for commercial use)

3. Choose another font.

If you don't want to set up an account with a font provider for a monthly fee then I recommend that you choose another font. It's not really worth your while to pay a monthly fee for a service if you're only using one font. I don't know what your client is like, but some can be quite particular and unwilling to make changes, so you will need to convince them in some way. Luckily for you, the foundry that designed Calibri released a free font called Droid Sans which looks very, very similar to Calibri, so much so that I doubt your client will notice. So, if you believe that your client will pay the extra money for the font, but you don't want to commit to a monthly payment for the fonts then you could just switch the fonts without telling the client.

Obviously you know your client better than I do so choose what's going to work for you, and not bite you in the arse later.
 
Calibri is an Office font, it's not something i'd use for the web personally. I think the best thing to do on this would be to advise the client of desktop vs web fonts.

Personally i'm not a fan of cuFON, it just adds weight and normally causes compatibility problems with sites. If possible i'd stick with the defaults, or use services such as google web fonts or typekit.
 
Squiddy said:
1. Explain to your client that in order to do this you will need to pay a fee for using a premium, licensed font and then go to one of the font services that will charge you a monthly fee. (This is really for people who have a lot of clients and use fonts on a regular basis)

2. Embed the font into the website using CSS, without permission (not recommended, especially for commercial use)

3. Choose another font.
Click to expand...

4. (although not 100% sure this can be done) set the website to access the font if it's on the pc then fall back to an alternative on those that don't have, a bit like arial/helvetica. The client should see the calibri font as they have the font due to office but those that don't will see the fall back font...
 
Calibri isn't so wildly distinct that I can see it being a problem to use something else.

There is a massive blacklist of fonts from various sources, for all manor of reasons.

In work, the designers always use google web fonts or free font-face stuff to make life easier.

Cufon...well it blows.
 
At a glance, its another one for the pile of close enough that, without a microscope they wouldn't notice.
 
Glad the situation seems to have been resolved. Levi, the problem with that method is that Calibri is actually a much smaller font than the web-safe fonts, even at the same pt/pz/% size. When users don't have Calibri and are instead using one of the fall-back fonts, their pages will instead have rather large text which will look pretty bad.
 
Try the google web fonts collection!
Theres thousands of the things and its easy to inteigrate into the CSS on your page! its really not that hard to change and if you've already got your CSS set up on the page you can change it in the code
 
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