The page does not display the font until the Font API requests are returned

Question

Every time I refresh the page, I have to wait until a bunch of requests come back before I see the fonts appear. Fonts are cached, and all of these requests return a "Not Modified" header. Is it correct for the browser to not display the font until it makes sure that the font has not been changed? Did I miss something?

I understand that I can use a common fallback font until the correct fonts are loaded, but this will break my page.

I see this behavior in Chrome and Firefox, as on Ubuntu. My Internet is really heterogeneous, so sometimes I have to look at a fully loaded page with invisible text, this is really frustrating.

Answer 1

You should always use the fall-back font and design your page so that it does not break the page. Sometimes the Google font service may not be available; in other cases, your users may be behind firewalls that do not allow fonts to be downloaded. And, as you saw, your fonts will not be displayed immediately until the browser is satisfied that the fonts have been downloaded properly.