In order to make your web pages look good across all platforms
and browsers, you must standardize your font selection. You must
also limit the fonts that you use to those that probably will be
installed on most of your target systems.
The reason for this is simple: fonts within web pages are only
displayed properly if the font is installed within the viewers
computer system. You might think your web page looks great with
the "Oreo Bazooka Joe" font, but since I don't have that
installed my system will substitute my default font.
The problem is especially apparent for those Windows designers
with many different fonts installed. It looks great on their
system, right? Some web sites solve this problem by allowing
their visitors to download and install the fonts which they
display. I've seen this most often in "Halloween" sites with
their strange, gothic fonts. Have I ever downloaded and
installed those fonts? Nope.
This method has the same problem that plug-ins introduce:
visitors usually don't want to install special things to view
your web site. Requiring them to install a new font just gives
people one more reason to leave fast. Microsoft has helped by
creating a series of "web fonts" - a core of fonts which are by
default installed on any system that runs Internet Explorer.
These fonts are the same for both Windows and Macintosh.
These fonts include "Verdana", "Arial", "Trebuchet MS".
"Georgia" and "Comic Sans MS".
Generally, when you specify a font in a web page you should
indicate a primary font and a secondary font. This gives the
system a choice as to which fonts to use. The tag is styled as
shown below.
<font face="Comic Sans MS,Arial">
This tag says to use Comic Sans MS if it is available. If not,
then Arial is to be used. The advantage of using this method is
that you can ensure that your web pages work properly even if
your visitors do not have exactly the right fonts installed.
About the author:
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets.
This website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your
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