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Preloading fonts without making everything else wait

A preload tag moves a font to the front of the queue. It also moves everything behind it further back, which is the part nobody mentions.

Preloading a font is a promise that the file is needed immediately. Make that promise about four weights and you have simply reordered the queue without shortening it.

Preload one weight: the one that renders the first paragraph. Everything else can arrive on its own schedule, and with a sensible fallback stack nobody will notice.

Subset before you preload

A 40 KB subset of the weight you actually use beats a 180 KB preload of the whole family every time, and it needs no tag at all.

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