Also, jefftk said “requiring”. Sure, he could have a site that uses Inter, either loaded from his own site or from a CDN like Google Fonts, but if Inter doesn’t load (mostly likely because of user preference), then everything will be fine.
If TeX fonts don’t load…then what happens? Does the user see raw TeX, or nothing at all, or…?
Daring Fireball is a site one has primarily heard of for being an Apple/Mac shill, so perhaps not the best example of a website relying on OS-supplied fonts...
And that is what happens when you don’t use webfonts.
If TeX fonts don’t load…then what happens? Does the user see raw TeX, or nothing at all, or…?
The user sees the rendered equations, set in whatever font is inherited by the equation element (most likely, the font of the surrounding text block). This might be fine:
I have no trouble believing it, but that speaks more about Linux’s generally sloppy and incompetent approach to typography than it does about whether leaving your website to the whims of OS-provided fonts has good results or not…
I don’t know—when I used Linux on my main machine I was happy with how things looked and generally preferred sites and programs that fit in with the rest of the environment. And Linux users are disproportionately the kind of people who, if they don’t like their system’s default font, will pick something they prefer.
Daring Fireball, a site you’ve probably heard of, seems to do OK with only browser-supplied fonts:
Also, jefftk said “requiring”. Sure, he could have a site that uses Inter, either loaded from his own site or from a CDN like Google Fonts, but if Inter doesn’t load (mostly likely because of user preference), then everything will be fine.
If TeX fonts don’t load…then what happens? Does the user see raw TeX, or nothing at all, or…?
Daring Fireball is a site one has primarily heard of for being an Apple/Mac shill, so perhaps not the best example of a website relying on OS-supplied fonts...
Daring Fireball also uses:
"Gill Sans MT", "Gill Sans", "Gill Sans Std", Georgia, serifBecause of this, and what you quoted, a page that, on a Mac, looks like this:
Daring Fireball page, as seen on a Mac
on a Linux, looks like this:
Daring Fireball page, as seen on a Linux
i.e., it looks bad.
And that is what happens when you don’t use webfonts.
The user sees the rendered equations, set in whatever font is inherited by the equation element (most likely, the font of the surrounding text block). This might be fine:
(Or, it could be very bad. You never know!)
For what it’s worth I think the Linux screenshot is fine—that’s the default font on that system.
I have no trouble believing it, but that speaks more about Linux’s generally sloppy and incompetent approach to typography than it does about whether leaving your website to the whims of OS-provided fonts has good results or not…
I don’t know—when I used Linux on my main machine I was happy with how things looked and generally preferred sites and programs that fit in with the rest of the environment. And Linux users are disproportionately the kind of people who, if they don’t like their system’s default font, will pick something they prefer.