Best font management in Twenty twenty

Hi @ahardy42 –

(1) what’s the best font plugin that’s most compatible with Twenty Twenty?

I don’t think there’s any specific font plugin that’s better for Twenty Twenty than any other.

Up til now I’ve been using Google Fonts and haven’t been convinced that I’m doing it right because I have to add tweaks in the Additional CSS to make everything work.

I think it’s pretty normal that you’d need to add custom CSS to apply font styles to specific elements in a theme.

Font plugins load your selected fonts on your site, and sometimes also include broad settings to apply the fonts to some elements (for example, h1). But since a theme’s styles might be more specific (in CSS terms) than the element targetted by the font plugin, custom CSS is often still needed to override the theme’s styles.

(2) is the Twenty Twenty theme nearing the point where it’s being out-competed by on functionality by newer themes? Is there a newer theme that will give me a smoother webmaster experience with fonts, and maybe more? Bearing in mind I like to keep things simple…

You might like to set up a test site to explore the world of block themes and Full Site Editing (FSE). It’s a whole new way of building sites, replacing the Customizer and Additional CSS with a template editor and Styles (formerly Global Styles), where fonts can be applied to different elements. That said, it may not be “simpler” than what you’re used to, that’s a relative term. ??

If you’d like to start exploring FSE and block themes, have a peek at these resources:

https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/support-resource-for-twenty-twenty-two/

https://learn.www.ads-software.com/lesson-plan/how-to-style-your-site-with-global-styles/

That said, font management in FSE is still nascent. But in the future, it should become easier to add your own fonts. ??

Hi Kathryn
thanks for the run-down and the tip regarding FSE. It sounds fascinating. Before I launch myself into an investigation, can you briefly say how FSE relates to Gutenberg? I have recently defended the WP Gutenberg editor against evangelical attacks by advocates for Elementor for instance, so I’m getting emotionally invested in it ?? Am I right in thinking that FSE would work well with Gutenberg, and only acts as a replacement for the Customizer?

FSE takes the block editor (aka Gutenberg) and expands it to areas beyond the post and page content itself.

So for example, with FSE, you can edit the header, footer, and sidebar areas of your site with the block editor. So instead of having to go into the Customizer to add a logo, for example, or Appearance > Menus to create a navigation menu, with FSE you can edit your logos and menus directly with the block editor, within a new Templates area. So the block editor + FSE are tightly interwoven, unlocking the power of the block editor for use in areas that were not previously available.

Ooooh, that sounds really cool. I shall definitely check it out – thanks for the links.

You’re very welcome!

I’ll mark this thread as resolved, but feel free to start a new one if you have other questions.