Learning Web Design Third Edition- P23:Everything you need to know to create professional web sites is right here. Learning Web Design starts from the beginning defining how the Web and web pages work and builds from there. By the end of the book, you'll have the skills to create multi-column CSS layouts with optimized graphic files, and you'll know how to get your pages up on the Web. | The Font Properties Serif Decorative serif stroke Htello Times Hello Times New Roman Hello Georgia Hello Lucida Mac Sans-serif Straight strokes Oello Veranda Hello Arial Hello Trebuchet MS Hello Arial Black DESIGN TIP You ll find that the majority of professional web sites use Verdana because it was specially designed to be legible at small sizes on computer monitors. This is a common value line-up for font-family Verdana Arial sans-serif Monospace Monospace font equal widths Wfl Proportional font different widths Hello Courier Courier New Hello Andale Mono Cursive tfeiio Hello Apple Chancery Comic Sans Snell Fantasy Hello HELLO IKU Imapct Stencil Mojo Figure 12-2. Examples of the five generic font families. Font specifying strategies The best practice for specifying fonts for web pages is to start with your first choice provide some similar alternatives then end with a generic font family that at least gets users in the right stylistic ballpark. Here s another example of this strategy in action. With this style rule I specify that I d prefer that users see all the text in Verdana but I d settle for Arial or Helvetica or if all else fails I ll let the browser choose an available sans-serif font for me. body font-family Verdana Arial Helvetica sans-serif Because a font will only show up if it s on a user s hard drive it makes sense to specify fonts that are the most commonly available. Although there are countless fonts out there the fact is that because licensed copies of fonts cost big bucks most users stick with the fonts that are installed by their operating 206 Part III CSS for Presentation The Font Properties system or other applications. Font copyright also prevents designers from just making cool fonts available for download. For these reasons web designers tend to specify fonts from the Microsoft Core Web Fonts collection. These come installed with Windows Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office so it is likely that they will find their way onto all Windows
