Fonts
Something which always infuriates designers is the limited number of fonts available for use on the web. While it is possible to use any font you like on a page, the end user will only see it if they have it installed on their system. If they don’t, a fallback font is used and the look of the page will be very different from what was expected. It could even break the layout. The following fonts are “web safe” ie. nearly all browsers on nearly all platforms will render them. The graphic to the right provides a comparison so you can see what the fonts look like if by chance you do not have some of them installed.
- Arial/Helvetica
- Verdana
- Tahoma
- Trebuchet MS
- Georgia
- Times New Roman
- Courier New
- Comic Sans MS
Several text effects can be used with the fonts listed above. Bold and italics are obviously supported. It is possible to underline and overline text but that’s not recommended as it can cause confusion about what is a link and what isn’t. Letter spacing can be set as can line height for paragraphs. Also, some browsers will render text as small-caps but as this isn’t completely reliable it’s advised that you only use it as an optional style - don’t rely on it.
It is possible to use other fonts by rendering them as graphics but as stated on the previous page that is not recommended as it is less accessible and increases load times. Instead, consider a re-usable background graphic which text can be overlaid upon.
As an additional note I would caution against the use of Comic Sans. It’s a very unpopular font regarded by many as being tacky and childish and there are many websites dedicated to eliminating it eg. http://bancomicsans.com/ It’s the kind of font that suits certain sites such as toy shops and kids’ clothing stores but it should generally be avoided otherwise.