Which fonts can I use on my website? What if I want to use
others?
If you've done any word processing or desk-top publishing,
you'll be used to using all sorts of fancy fonts - for
headlines, logos, and banners. For your web pages, you'll have
to do things differently.
What if I put a "fancy" font on my web page? If you haven't got
the same fonts on your PC that I have on mine, your browser will
just show a font that's as close as it can find. If you're not
using a PC, or the Windows operating system, then again your
computer will display a font as close to the one specified as it
can.
If you want to use fancy or non-standard fonts on your web site,
for example on a banner, you'll have to create a graphic file
with the text in it. The banners that you see as headers and ads
on web sites are all graphics - even when they look as though
they are all text.
Which fonts can I use without using a graphics program?
Windows usually includes Arial, Helvetica, Times Roman, and
Verdana, as well as Comic Sans MS, Trebuchet, and Impact!,
unless the user has removed them from their PC.
Mac users should have Arial on their machines.
The problem is that in many parts of the world, people don't
have a PC or Mac at home. They use college or university
workstations, and these are usually using the Unix operating
system instead of Windows. If they do have a home PC, they use
the free Linux operating system and software. Both show Verdana
and Arial very badly.
So if you want as many visitors as possible to view your pages
as you intended them to, you should choose a range of fonts,
like this:
In this example, Arial and Helvetica are two common sans- serif
fonts - browsers will look for your first choice (Arial), then
the second (Helvetica). If they can't find those two, they'll
look for any font that's the right type (sans-serif).
Happy site building!