How do I choose fonts for Web pages?
Fonts vary on computers
For a visitor to your Web page to view the text in the font that has been specified, this font must be already present on his/her computer. These fonts are supplied within certain types of software installed on the computer, such as word processing, desktop publishing and Operating Systems. These software types do not supply the same fonts and the software installed on computers does vary.
What if the font isn't present?
If the font specified for the text is not present on the visitor's computer, then the browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, will make substitution based on what it finds on the visitor's computer. This font replacement, while it may come from the same general category, could result in a less attractive page, or even cause layout problems.
What can be done about this?
The browsers can be given a selection of fonts (a font-family) from which to choose, in descending order of preference. The most genereal type is last, for example serif (letters that have curls and lines at each end) or sans-serif (letters without curls and lines on the ends).
What is a font family?
There are groups of fonts, or font-families, in both the serif and sans-serif categories, which allow a page to change gracefully if there has to be a substitution. This means the members of a font-family are similar enough in design, so each member of the font-family will allow your Web page to retain a good appearance and layout. These font-families contain fonts that are available on Windows, Macintosh and other Operating Systems.
What if I want a special heading or logo?
Special headings or logos can be created from any font and made into an image using a graphic software, such as Photoshop. These images can be also used as links.
Text, Browsers and User Preferences
Browsers, such as MS Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator and Opera allow users to specify individual preferences for page appearance including:
text color
text enlargement
background color
show pictures
font
font-size
I experimented with the various user prefences on Netscape Navigator (versions 4.78, 6.2 and 7.0), Internet Explorer 6 and Opera 7. All the Web sites I looked at (primarily the browsers' own home pages and large business sites, such as Disney) were changed by my selections. I also noticed that page layout did not breakdown and the text was still readable (as long as there was good contrast between the background and text colors). So, messages still got across and information could be gathered. I came away with the opinion that the best way these stresses should be addressed is through page layout and use of font-families when stipulating fonts.
Font Replacement Examples
This page has been created in three other fonts, Arial, Georgia and Times New Roman, to demonstrate what would happen, if the browser had to choose another member within a font-family. Arial is in the same sans-serif family as Verdana. Georgia is a common font, but may not be on everyone's computers. However a browser could choose Times New Roman, which is in the same serif font-family. These pages will open in separate windows, for comparison purposes. For a Macintosh computer these two examples, could default the to Arial and Times fonts.
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