Whereas standard HTML and CSS do allow a webpage author to assign any font of their choice to a text element, there is no guarantee that the element will show as intended as the browsing user may or may not have the specified font installed in their system. sIFR on the other hand allows website headings, pull-quotes and other elements to be styled in any font by enabling the designer to embed the font of their choice in a Flash element that displays the text. As a result the font used does not have to be installed on the user machine.

A common technique is to use raster graphics to display text in a font that cannot be trusted to be available on most computers. There are a few restrictions however. Text created this way pixelates when scaled, is difficult to generate on-the-fly, and cannot be partially selected. In contrast, sIFR text elements mimic HTML projected text – they are paintable and copyable.

sIFR requires JavaScript to be enabled and the Flash plugin installed in the reading browser. If either condition is not met, the reader’s browser will automatically display traditional CSS based styling instead of the sIFR rendering. sIFR is not designed for body copy text as rendering greater bodies of text with Flash place formidable demands on the computer.

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