Web Fonts, First Attempt

Downloadable web fonts shipped in Internet Explorer 4 in 1997, failed, and came back as a standard twelve years later.

In 2026: Dead. Internet Explorer wanted .eot files, made by a clumsy Microsoft tool called WEFT, and no other browser ever read the format. The @font-face rule below asks for an .eot that no engine will load, so the heading falls back to a system font. The same rule, pointed at a .woff2, is how every custom font on the web arrives today.

Where it came from: Microsoft Embedded OpenType and the WEFT tool, Internet Explorer 4, 1997. @font-face returned to the web with WOFF around 2009. Wikipedia ↗

<style>
/* Internet Explorer 4, 1997. The .eot format died; the @font-face rule lived. */
@font-face {
  font-family: "Fancy";
  src: url(fancyfont.eot);                       /* IE-only Embedded OpenType */
  src: url(fancyfont.eot?#iefix) format("embedded-opentype");
}
h2 { font-family: "Fancy", Georgia, serif; }
</style>

<h2>This heading wanted a downloaded font in 1997.</h2>
<p>The .eot never loads, so you are reading the fallback.</p>