Acquisition of a Font Portion Using a Compression Mechanism

A computing device comprising:

• at least a memory and a processor to perform operations comprising:
• determining multiple characters that comprise a portion of a font definition;
• computing a compressed representation of the multiple characters;
• communicating a single request to a font repository, the single request including the compressed representation;
• receiving from the font repository a font description that corresponds to the compressed representation;
• and
• producing a local font at the computing device using the font description, the local font comprising a version of the font definition.

A method implemented by a server device, the method comprising:

• receiving, from the end-user device, a compressed representation corresponding to multiple characters that comprise a portion of a font definition;
• decoding the compressed representation to identify multiple code points;
• ascertaining the multiple characters based on the multiple code points, the multiple characters respectively corresponding to the multiple code points;
• accessing the font definition to extract font attributes for multiple glyphs that correspond to the multiple characters;
• preparing a font description correspond to the compressed representation based on the font attributes, the font description enabling the end-user device to render the multiple glyphs as part of a local font of the end-user device;
• and
• transmitting the font description to the end-user device.