Question

For some reason my website causes IE to render in “document mode IE7”.
I have replaced the sprites and image icons on the page with a font version.
Unfortunately, the font-face css does not work in this browser.
When I switch the “document mode” to IE8 or IE9 in IE’s developer tools, the icons show as intended.

I do not understand why IE7 does not show the icons. As far as I know, it should be possible for it to use the font.

As you can see in the code, I have used the font files and css defintions from fontello.com.

Here is the style sheet that I use to show the icons:

<style type="text/css">
@font-face {
 font-family: 'fontello-postbit';
 src:url(/includes/fonts/fontello-postbit.eot);
 src:url(/includes/fonts/fontello-postbit.eot?#iefix) format('embedded-opentype'),
 url(/includes/fonts/fontello-postbit.woff) format('woff'),
 url(/includes/fonts/fontello-postbit.ttf) format('truetype'),
 url(/includes/fonts/fontello-postbit.svg#fontello-postbit) format('svg');
 font-weight:normal;
 font-style:normal;
}
[class^="icon-"]:before,
[class*=" icon-"]:before {
  font-family: 'fontello-postbit';
  font-style:normal;
  font-weight:normal;
  font-size: 120%;
  display:inline-block;
  text-decoration:none;
  width:1em;
  margin-right:0.2em;
  text-align:center;
  opacity:0.8;
/* fix buttons height, for twitter bootstrap */
  line-height: 1em;
/* Animation center compensation - magrins should be symmetric */
/* remove if not needed */
  margin-right: 0.2em;
  speak: none;
}
.icon-star:before { content: '\2605'; } /* '?' */
.icon-star-empty:before { content: '\2606'; } /* '?' */
.icon-flag:before { content: '\2691'; } /* '?' */
.icon-attention:before { content: '\26a0'; } /* '?' */
/* ... etc ...*/
.icon-user:before { content: '\1f464'; } /* '\1f464' */
</style>

EDIT: Duh – I just noticed that fontello offers a css workaround for IE7 themselves.

Answer 1

Probably because :before and :after pseudoelements are not recognized by IE7.

You might try some of these solutions, if its critical:
after-and-before-css-pseudo-elements-hack-for-ie-7

Or you could disregard IE7.