Typography is a nightmare for those who have design a good attractive website using artistic fonts. These artistic fonts will not support web browser as well. I think cufon will help those who are facing this type of situation.
Cufon is an implementation of javascript, SVG, and Canvas that slaps your font into place after the browser has loaded your website with an amazing amount of speed and efficiencySo it better than image replacement, and simple.
Compatibility: Cufon works in all browsers except IE6. Since it’s run by javascript, it doesn’t require you to have the most recent version of flash on your site. In fact, it doesn’t require flash at all (and thank god). Not every browser has implemented the use of canvas or SVG, but with javascript mixed in, every browser (except stupid old IE6) is at least able to run Cufon.
Usability: Cufon is amazingly easy to install. Plug your font into their encoder, allow it to spit it out, and plug it in. For those of us who are CSS gurus and not developers, this means something very important: Cufon works like a breeze with CSS! For any of you who have been using sIFR to do your subbing in, and I have tried it myself so I am talking from experience, how difficult is it to actually A. Target a piece of HTML with sIFR and B. Actually then apply the correct CSS to it without tying yourself in a knot over word-spacing, line-height, and all the other joys of actually forcing your new flash text to over-write your old text in that pretty manner that you want? You know what I mean. With Cufon: Apply it, target it with javascript (Cufon.replace(‘h1′)) and Apply your CSS as normal. No extra instructions, no obnoxious work-arounds, just put it all in and make it pretty. No stress and no grey hairs.
Speed: Taking compatibility into consideration with this one, @font-face is fast. It plugs your text in like normal. In the browsers it works in. Image-replacement is fast enough. You have to wait for the images to load and in the meantime, no text appears at all. Luckily for us, Cufon pops up (leaving your regular text there until it does, styled with the CSS as normal so it looks nice) as soon as your javascript kicks in. Which is pretty darn fast in all the modern browsers.
Safety: Cufon does imbed the font you upload into a new javascript file for you and requests that you specifically apply it to your domain. People can probably steal all the code and put it in their website, but they won’t be able to download it for use at least.
