JAF webfonts – technical overview

All JAF fonts are now available for use on web pages. You do not need to install or host them, this is part of our service. Simply order a subscription for the family you want to use and your domain will be activated instantly.

Easy to use

Activate the fonts with a single, unified line of code and use them as if they were installed on your website visitor's computer. See the individual font description for details.

Easy to try

The JAF webfonts can be tried out offline without registration. You can purchase a subscription once your website goes online.

No scripts

The fonts are served as static data, without any scripts running on the server and without the need for JavaScript in the website visitor's browser. This allows for very short latency times, faster delivery and smoother browsing experience.

Browser support

JAF webfonts work on all major browsers, such as Firefox 3.5+, Internet Explorer 6+, Chrome and Safari 3+. Opera, iPhone and iPad are currently not supported but we have plans to add support in future.

Font formats

The fonts are served as WOFF, EOT and TTF files, depending on the browser.

Long-term caching

The JAF webfont systems allows and even encourages the caching of fonts in the user's browser. This means significantly reduced load time and volume for visitors returning to your site. The “Flash of Unstyled Text” only occurs when the user visits your website for the first time.

Compressed data

While WOFF and EOT are natively compressed formats, the TTF and CSS files are served by JAF as static, pre-compressed files to those clients that support compression. This guarantees a combination of fast response times and short loading times.

Browser consistency

All weights from extralight to extrabold are available and render consistently across browsers, without the risk of artificial boldening and slanting.

Traffic Limits

The basic webfont subscription is limited to 2 GB of traffic per month. Of course, we won’t simply deactivate your subscription if this is exceeded. If you are hosting a highly frequented website we are happy to discuss traffic extensions, custom or self-hosting solutions.

Clicks for free

Since fonts do not need to be loaded for every page view, our system only limits the data volume per month. In fact, many of your page views will not even cause any requests to the JAF server. Extensive and highly frequented websites profit particularly from this efficiency.

Font protection

Downloading, hosting or installing the JAF webfonts on a computer is not permitted. Since web fonts have to be downloaded by the browser, complete protection from illegal downloads is not possible. However, we have set up several hurdles to make font theft tedious and a conscious act. Although the JAF webfonts are cacheable, it is difficult to extract working desktop fonts. For security reasons, the technical details cannot be discussed here but we are confident that the JAF webfont service is at least as secure as that of other webfont providers.

Have your own fonts hosted

Please contact us if you want your own fonts served by the JAF webfonts system. This is, of course, subject to the end-user license of the fonts, and we are happy to provide assistance in this question as well.