Web Designers, I have a font question...?

Question

I'm putting together a site or two, and I've got about 400 fonts on my machine. I know not to use obscure ones, but is there anyway you could list for me a list of GOOD COMMON FONTS, perhaps some that will be a bit different than Arial or Times, but will still draw correctly on most machines? A link to a list, or a typed list would be great! Thanks in advance, Greg

Answer 1

Hi there:

Your best bet would be as follows:

Combos:
Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif

Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif,'Arial Narrow','Arial MT Condensed Light',sans-serif

Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif

MS Sans Serif',Geneva,sans-serif

System,Chicago,sans-serif

'Times New Roman',Times,serif

This is in order of popularity and cross browser compatibility!

I hope this is helpful. I know that these would be good for Mac and PC.

You can also have browser specific stylesheets by using a simple javascript to determine what to output. (But using the types mentioned above would take care of this problem for sure)

Answer 2

It's pretty safe to assume that most computers will have the fonts that Microsoft used to ship as "core fonts for the web." These fonts include Andale, Arial, Times New Roman, Comic Sans MS, Georgia, Courier New, Impact, Trebuchet, Verdana, and Webdings.

If you're using CSS to specify your fonts, (you should) you can always specify a "fallback" font to use, if the user's computer does not have your first choice of font.

For example using "font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" will cause the browser to use Helvetica if Arial is not available, and the browser's default sans-serif font if neither are available.

Answer 3

The Sans-serif family
Arial, Verdana, Geneva, Helvetica, sans-serif

The Serif family
Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif

The Monospace family
Courier New, Courier, monospace

Answer 4

The most commond would be:

Arial, Helv, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Roman, Times and Verdana

For headlines, you can always create a graphic of the font and use that.

Keep in mind, one of the reasons those font are the most popular is that they are the easiest to read. Don't sacrifice usability and readability for your view of ascetic superiority.

Answer 5

I like Verdana, Tahoma, Georgia and Impact as nice looking common system fonts that everyone can see. If you squish the characters of Georgia and Times New Roman, you get a whole new look.