Avoid invisible text when loading a font

Written byPhuoc Nguyen

Tags

CSS, Google Font

Created

25 Mar, 2021

It takes time to load a big font. Most browsers will hide texts until the font is loaded completely. This problem is known as flash of invisible text (FOIT).

We can prevent it from happening by asking the browser to use the system font while the custom font is still being loaded. Once the font is loaded, it will replace the system font used earlier. This phrase is also known as flash of unstyled text (FOUT).

In order to archive it, we can use the `font-display` style:

@font-face {
    font-family: 'Roboto';
    font-display: swap;
}

If you are using Google fonts, then putting the `display=swap` parameter is the equivalent way:

<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Roboto:400,700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet" />

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Phước Nguyễn

Avoid invisible text when loading a font

#See also

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