Whether you're on a mobile device or an older computer, you've likely seen it: when you try to read text in another language, the screen shows small white rectangles because the appropriate font doesn't exist or hasn't been installed. It's a seemingly simple problem, but the solution is much more complicated than we imagine. That's where Google steps in with its Noto project, a family of fonts compatible with more than 800 languages and a hundred special writing alphabets.
The Mystery of the White Rectangles
How many times have we come across those small white rectangles where a missing font should be? Exploring the web takes us to strange places, including sites in languages that computers and browsers can't fully interpret with their default configuration. That white rectangle is a placeholder commonly known as tofu, though its official title is .notdef. And the truth is, it stinks. Even if we don't understand the original language, tofu ruins the aesthetics of any site. Google has been working for several years on a kind of universal font capable of completely eradicating tofu and restoring harmony under a single style, which is lost if a paragraph is written in multiple languages at once.
Noto: Fonts for Every Language
The result is the Noto fonts family—("No Tofu"). Over 800 languages and a hundred special alphabets fall under these superfonts, whose complete download is around half a gigabyte if we want them all. The big challenge of Noto is to present fonts that are both "simple and complex" at the same time. If a font is too Spartan, it will have a deficient appearance in languages with more elaborate calligraphy and will be nearly impossible to read, so flexibility is a critical parameter within the Noto family. Google publishes a series of recommendations on where and how to use Noto (subtitles, graphical interfaces, advertising, immediate distribution texts, etc.), but the priority is clear: Noto is designed for the Web..
Downloading Noto
Want a copy? There's no obstacle. Look up the language on the official page (that way you'll avoid the entire package), download the suggested fonts, and that's it. The Noto family has been registered under the SIL Open Font License, and according to its official text, it qualifies as FLOSS.
