@font-face

Updated on 26-May-2025

@font-face
extensions
multiple
font-weight
@import

@font-face rule

CSS3 includes @font-face rule to embedded fonts in css. But till CSS2, only Web Safe fonts were used. Embedded fonts supports five extensions, woff, woff2, otf/ttf, eot and svg. However we prefer woff2 over others. In the next example, see how to add font in html page using @font-face rule.

How to add font in html page

<style>
@font-face{
    font-family:'helvetica neue';
    src:url('../fonts/helvetica-neue.woff2') format('woff2');
    font-weight:400;
    font-display:swap;
}

body{
    font-family:'helvetica neue', sans-serif;
}
</style>

Create a folder namedfonts in root directory and add helvetica-neue font with woff2 extension.

Web Fonts Extensions

Web supports five fonts extensions, woff, woff2, ttf/otf, eot and svg. Here is a comparison of web fonts.

Comparison of web fonts
Extension	Full Form	Browser Support
woff2	Web Open Font Format Version 2 (30% lighter than woff)	Only Chrome 40+, Chrome (Android) 46+, Firefox 40+, Opera 32+,
woff	Web Open Font Format	All browsers except IE8
otf / ttf	Other Type Fonts and True Type Font	All browsers except IE8
EOT	Embedded OpenType	Only IE 8 to 11
SVG	Scalable Vector Graphics	Only for Safari (MacOS) 8+, Safari (IOS) 8.4+

Multiple Fonts extensions in font face

Some time a particular OS doesn't understand a font extension and discard that font. To avoid this, use Multiple Fonts extension in font face rule.

Always prefer lighter fonts first to improve page-speed. In example below, woff2 is lighter than woff, which is lighter than ttf.

<style>
@font-face{

font-family:'helvetica-neue';

src:url('../fonts/helvetica-neue.woff2') format('woff2'), 
    url('../fonts/helvetica-neue.woff') format('woff'), 
    url('../fonts/helvetica-neue.ttf') format('ttf'), 
    url('../fonts/helvetica-neue.otf') format('otf'),
    url('../fonts/helvetica-neue.svg') format('svg');
}

body{
    font-family:'helvetica-neue', sans-serif;
}
</style>

Use Multiple Font Weights

To add multiple fonts with variable font weights, we should use following steps.

<style>
@font-face{
font-family:'helvetica-neue'; 
font-weight:400; 
font-display:swap;          
src:url('../fonts/helvetica-neue-regular.woff2'), url('../fonts/helvetica-neue-regular.woff');
}

@font-face{
font-family:'helvetica-neue'; 
font-weight:700;
font-display:swap;           
src:url('../fonts/helvetica-neue-bold.woff2'), url('../fonts/helvetica-neue-bold.woff');
}

@font-face{
font-family:'helvetica-neue'; 
font-weight:100;
font-display:swap;           
src:url('../fonts/helvetica-neue-thin.woff2'), url('../fonts/helvetica-neue-thin.woff');
}
                
body{
    font-family:'helvetica-neue', sans-serif;
}
</style>

@font-face rule works on IE 9 and above browsers only. Use font substitute for embedded font.

@import using Google Fonts

To embedded fonts from cdns, like google fonts, we can use @import rule. Google Fonts includes 1500+ free fonts with variable weights.

<style>
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Roboto&display=swap')
                        
body{
    font-family:'Roboto', sans-serif;
}
</style>

@import rule and @import should be used at the top of style tag or .css file.