Fonts

He has: 688 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

All of my personal sites use Arial, Verdana, Helvetica. All san-serif. Well for my first ever client site it would be a better fit to use fonts like Times New Roman and similar. My question is since Times and similar fonts are the default in all major browsers, do I really need to specify a font family in my CSS, or should I leave it blank? If so, what's the most common set of serif font names to use?

Side bar: On a separate issue, if I want to take a chance on using a fancy script font for a special title type as the first choice in my CSS font family (with safe fonts as #2 and #3), what fancy script is most common that it may actually see the light of day? "Brush", "Signature", "Script"? Or do you recommend I don't even waste my time with this nonsense thought?

Thanks Laughing out loud

Renegade's picture

He has: 3,022 posts

Joined: Oct 2002

It is a good idea to set the serif font for many browsers have the option for you to choose the default font.

As for the sidebar thing, don't waste your time, not everyone is going to have the same font, but if you really must then use images Sticking out tongue

The Webmistress's picture

She has: 5,586 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

I would always stick to using Verdana or Arial as TNR is very hard to read on screen (it's a printing font) and doesn't look as professional IMO. If you want to use fancy fonts then do them as graphics as many people wont have them installed.

Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Something like Garamond or Georgia might be a suitable alternative for a serif font. There are alternatives to TNR if you want to go serif. It does provide a very different look which can be successful in many cases.

(my font selection at work is currently more or less a default Windows install - I do have Georgia and Garamond but no script.)

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