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mjan I guess you want to convert a TTF file into an EOT file without any fuzz, right? For some languages, like Chinese, a TTF file is 20-50MB in size. The EOT file would be something like 10-30MB. For an average DSL user (512Kbit) it would take 5 minutes to look at a web page that uses such a font! A font for a less demanding language, like English, would be something like 400KB. As an EOT it would be something like 200KB. That would take 3 seconds to a DSL user, or 30 seconds for a slower modem user.
Do you really want your web pages to be half a minute slower to some users? Would you want web pages to be even 3 seconds slower?
Fortunatelly, you don't have to make it like that. Most fonts contain characters that you would never need nor use (such as Greek and Cyrillic, as well as many obscure characters). Why would you want to have users wait minutes to download font with characters that they would never use? By only including the characters you need, you can reduce the time from 3 seconds for a DSL user to less than one second. For a modem user, you could be able to reduce the time from 30 seconds to less than 5 seconds (that's fast for a modem user). This make a world of difference.
There are two ways you can instruct WEFT to not include unwanted characters in EOTs -- through the expert tool or through the standard wizard. With the expert dialog, you would explicitly select which character to include. With the wizard (which is what you have been using) WEFT would determine the optimal character set based on the content of your web pages. You can add/remove characters once the Wizard has done this as well. This is why WFET needs access to your web pages. For example, you may never use the character 'z' in a web page. WEFT would be able to determine that if you would let WEFT analyze your web page and thus create an EOT without 'z'. The resulting EOT would be both smaller and faster to use.
Regarding your second problem -- depending on the provided URL and the web site in question, WEFT will query you for all the access information needed to upload files to your server for your. For example, if you specify a FTP url, then WEFT will ask for the FTP user name and password. If you are not comfortable with that, then simply specify a "file://" url (or click on the browse button so select a directory) and WEFT will store the result on your disk. You would then need to upload the resulting files manually. (I think most users prefer to upload their files manually.)
To summerize: If you just want to create a font file, then use the "expert tool". It's not intended to novice users though. You need to understand concepts like "bind url", because EOT files can only be used on the web site which they are created for (you can't "borrow" an EOT from one site and use it on another). Also, specify a "file://" URL if you want to upload the result yourself.
I would recommend using the Wizard and local files with using WEFT.
Regards,
- Michael
