In the world of web design, choosing the right typography is essential to convey the personality and essence of a site. In addition to choosing attractive and readable fonts, it is also important to consider the way they load and display on the page. In this article, we will explore how to use Font Display in CSS to improve font loading and optimize user experience.
What is Font Display?
Font Display is a CSS property that allows us to control the loading behavior of fonts on a website. With this property, we can indicate how we want fonts to be displayed while they are loading, especially on slow connections or in cases where the font cannot load correctly.
The Font Display property accepts multiple values, such as "auto", "block", "swap", "fallback", and "optional". Each value has a different effect on how the font loads and displays.
How to use Font Display in CSS?
To use Font Display in CSS, we simply apply the property to the style rule of the font we want to control. For example:
@font-face { font-family: 'MyFont'; src: url('mySource.woff2') format('woff2'), url('mySource.woff') format('woff'); font-display: swap; }
In this example, we have defined a custom font called 'MyFont' and we have indicated that we want it to be loaded using the value 'swap' for the Font Display property. This means that if the font cannot be loaded immediately, the browser will display a backup font until the custom font is available.
Benefits of using Font Display
Proper use of Font Display in CSS can significantly improve the user experience on a website. By controlling how fonts are displayed during loading, we can avoid issues such as flickering text or lack of readability while waiting for custom fonts to load.
Some of the key benefits of using Font Display are:
- A better loading experience: By indicating how fonts should be displayed, we can optimize loading time and avoid unnecessary delays.
- Better readability: By having backup fonts in case the custom font does not load correctly, we ensure that the text is always readable to users.
- Visual Consistency: By ensuring that fonts are displayed as desired, we prevent the visual presentation of the site from being compromised during font loading.
Conclusions
Choosing fonts and typefaces is crucial in web design, but it is also important to consider how they load and display on the page. Using the Font Display property in CSS allows us to have greater control over how fonts are displayed during loading, thus improving the user experience.
We hope this article has given you an overview of how to use Font Display in CSS. Always remember to consider design and optimization best practices to ensure an optimal user experience on your website.
Frequent questions
What values can I use in the Font Display property?
The Font Display property accepts multiple values, such as "auto", "block", "swap", "fallback", and "optional". Each value has a different effect on how the font loads and displays. It's up to you to choose the value that best suits your needs.
Do I need to use the Font Display property on all fonts on my website?
It is not necessary to use the Font Display property on all fonts on your website. You can choose to apply it only to those fonts that you consider most important or that have a significant impact on the aesthetics or readability of your site.
What should I do if the custom font does not load correctly?
If the custom font does not load correctly, be sure to verify that the font URL is correct and that the font file is in the proper format. You can also consider using backup fonts or a commonly used web font as an alternative.
To learn more about using Font Display and other web design techniques, we invite you to visit nelkodev.com. On our site you will find a wide range of resources and tutorials to help you improve your skills as a web developer.
English 
Spanish