I'm going to be setting the new standards for typography on the Web, and I want your help.

A few weeks back, while at the W3C CSS Work Group Face-To-Face meeting in San Diego, I volunteered, to be the advocate for several of the CSS 3 Modules. A while back, the Work Group decided that, rather than trying to release one big document, they would release the CSS 3 specification in smaller modular chunks. As an advocate for parts of the overall CSS 3 specifications, I work to push my chosen modules through from a working draft to a full blown recommendation. It's kind of like taking a bill through the US Congress, only with more transparency. I decided to take on the four issues which I believe will have the most effect on the work we do here at AOL: CSS Basic UI, CSS Hyperlink Presentation, CSS Fonts, and CSS Web Fonts. It's a lot of work, so I'll be concentrating on the Font Modules first.

After that meeting, I got in contact with John Daggett of The Mozilla Organization who volunteered to co-edit the CSS Fonts and CSS Web Fonts specifications with me. Seeing as he is responsible for working on the graphic and font implementations on Mozilla, he was a welcome addition.

So, what's the difference between CSS Fonts and CSS Web Fonts except for the word "Web"? Let me tell you about them:

• The CSS Fonts module define how type is displayed on the page; which font is used, it's size, and how it is styled (bold, italics, small-caps, etc...).
• The CSS Web Fonts module details how you download a font file for use in a Web page, just like you would download images. It also includes the ability to better match fonts for your design with those that are available to the end-user or even synthesize them on the fly.

Why not just treat these two specifications under one document to cover how fonts are used on Web pages? There is no real semantic reason to keep them separate, but unfortunately there are some logistical and technical reasons. How fonts will be downloaded for Web page use is being hotly debated in regards to how to protect fonts from improper use. Our worry is that by tying the two modules together, we might hold up the deployment of the basic CSS Font specification, for which there is relatively little contention, while the more disputed CSS Web Fonts specifications are debated.

The CSS Work Group is meeting in late August, and John and I will be presenting our revisions for both of these modules there and we would appreciate your input. In the comments section of this blog, tell me what you think are some of the font styles and features that are missing from the current specification. What do you expect to be able to do with typography on your Web pages that you can not do know. What are you doing now with kludges that you would like to see simpler ways of doing? Keep in mind that we are talking about font properties and how to style the characters. This includes things like bold, italic, and even outline and emboss. It does not include styles that area applied over an entire block of text such as underlining or rotating text. Those are in a different module.

Also, let me know what you think about some of the new additions to the Fonts specification )font-size-adjust, font-stretch, font-effect, and font-smooth) and problems you have with the current specifications.

Try to be as specific as possible, and provide examples if you can. I'm looking forward to seeing what the Web design community comes up with!