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Fonts & Typefaces Tutorial

The problem with choosing fonts for web pages is that the font needs to be installed on the user's computer in order for the web browser to display your chosen font.

If your chosen font is not available on the user's computer the web browser will show its default font. This is usually 'Times New Roman' for Windows machines and 'Times' on Macintosh machines.

To be safe you will need to stick to common fonts or 'Web Safe Fonts' that are installed on almost all machines. This then limits you to only a handful of fonts.

Fonts will always fall into one of two typeface categories. Either serif, meaning the font has curly bits at the top and bottom ends on the letters, or sans-serif, which does not have the curly bits.

The serif typefaces are easier to read on paper, which is why serif typefaces are used in newspapers and books, but the sans-serif typefaces are easier to read on a computer screen.

The following are web safe fonts: -

Times New Roman on the Windows or Times on the Apple Mac has a serif typeface and is available on virtually all computers.

Arial is a sans-serif font and is available on all Windows machines or Helvetica which is a very similar font available on the Apple Mac.

Courier New or Courier on the Apple Mac is serif font that is un-kerned meaning that there are spaces between the letters much like text written on a typewriter.

Verdana is a sans-serif font that is easy to read. This font comes with Internet Explorer 4+ for Windows and Apple Mac machines.

Georgia is a serif font available for free from Microsoft for Windows and Apple Mac machines. It is specially designed for easy reading on a computer screen.

In case the website user does not have the font installed on their computer you have chosen for a page it is best to specify several fonts all in the same typeface to keep your design as near as possible to the way you designed it.

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