Which fonts can I use on my website? What if I want to use others? by Dianne Reuby

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!

About the Author
Dianne Reuby is co-author of the e-book "First Website Builder". Dianne created and runs the First Web Builder site, dedicated to providing ebooks and tips for new webmasters.
Visit FWB at http://firstwebbuilder.co.uk/