Using pixel fonts???

by Rita Parada

Pixel fonts (also referred to as bitmap fonts) are designed especially for screen use. The use of regular fonts on screen in small sizes, 12 points or smaller, create a blurry effect, therefore, reduces legibility. The purpose of pixel fonts is to keep small text, body copy legible on the screen without the use of anti-aliasing. They are most often used in Macromedia Flash and Adobe Photoshop. Before making a decision in the application of pixel fonts, there are several rules to consider.

How to?

To use them correctly and avoid blurring one must have anti-aliasing turned off completely.

Pixel fonts are measured in pixels as opposed to the conventional type measurement, points. As long as a document is set to 72 ppi resolution pixels and points are the same. Pixel fonts can only be used specific to their original designed sizes or the multiples of that. For example, a font designed as 8 pixels is best used at 8 pixels or 16, 24 etc. Most frequently pixel fonts are designed as 8 pixels but this can vary by designer. Some of the pixel fonts are designed as 7 or 9 or 10 pixels. These specifications should be found out from the font resource where the fonts are purchased from.

The disadvantage in using pixel fonts is the result of their size limitation. In certain cases 8 pixels size might be too small to read and the next size, 16 pixels, might be too large. In addition, no bolding and italicizing of these fonts is recommended. To be able to create typographical hierarchy in an onscreen layout one must search for the most appropriate font or combination of fonts. The well designed pixel fonts have variations in sizes and weights, including versions designed smaller and larger, bold or italic.

It is recommended to keep the text alignment for pixel fonts to either left or right, not centered. Tracking and kerning should be set to zero and character widths to 100 percent. Leading (line spacing) can be modified as required.

One of the most important thing to remember while using pixel fonts in Flash is that all text need to be set on whole pixel coordinates in the x, y position. As an example, the position of text can be x:34 and y:132. Fractions as x:34.3 and y:132.5 can't be used. In Flash MX there is a feature "snap to pixel" to help preventing this problem.

One can run into problems by animating pixel fonts or placing them in a slider in Flash. There are several ways to avoid the blurring of fonts. The text could be turned into a movie clip, or should be animated by using Actionscripting. Pixel fonts can also be imported as gifs. However, as gifs they will produce a slightly larger file size.

In Flash pixel fonts work best as static text. Most of the time, no embedding of pixel fonts is recommended. This information is somewhat conflicting out there, depending on the designer of a specific font. Some allow the embedding of fonts for dynamic text or input text, some does not. Due to some bug, pixel fonts should not be used as dynamic text in Flash 5.

Pixel fonts can be used for printing. However, these fonts were intended to look sharp and clean on screen and printing them might not produce the same result.

Flash files need to be exported or published at 100 percent using the "match movie" or "match pixels" setting. The final swf movie should only be viewed at 100 percent and no resizing should be allowed.

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