C Christian W Web P Programming

For simplicity, I’ve divided the fonts into two basic font styles.  The two styles are sans-serif and serif.  The difference is pretty easy to see:  a serif is a small line added to a character to make the character more distinctive and, usually, easier to read.  Below you can see enlarged the most common serif and sans-serif fonts and compare.

Generally, serif fonts look more professional and are easier to read in situations where many consonants are placed together (as for abbreviations).  However, on the internet sans-serif fonts that are the same height as serif fonts appear larger and easier to read in most other situations.  You can see above how the second line appears bolder and larger, but in fact the letters are the same height.  Because the default browser font size is on the small side, sans-serif fonts are by far the most common used on the internet.  Here you can compare styles at the default browser size:

All of my web sites use the larger font size that you are reading now.  Because of this, I can use the more professional and more readable serif fonts without causing discomfort to visitors.  The trade-off is that my web pages are larger than they would be if the default font size was used, and users have to scroll down more often.

You may be wondering why your favorite font does not appear among the selections offered.  The problem is that not all computers have the same fonts installed.  In fact, roughly 1 out of every 100 computers will have only Times New Roman, Arial and Courier New installed!  What this means is:  if your web site uses non-standard fonts, your web site will not look the way that you want for users without those fonts.

Now, it’s not entirely bad news.  If you select a serif font like Georgia, and someone without Georgia visits your web site, they will still see a serif font (probably Times New Roman or something very similar).  However, when laying out a web site, text width is almost always a very important factor.  Since different fonts have different widths, your layout won’t look quite the same to users who don’t have the fonts you selected.

This is why I have offered only the most common fonts on my Web Site Theme Creator.  Using only these fonts lets you be sure that about 99% of all visitors to your web site will be looking at exactly the same thing that you are.  If you want 100%, stick to Times New Roman, Arial and Courier New.

Note:  a non-standard font can be used for a title or logo and we can make it look the same to all users.  To do that, we simply make a graphic (a computer drawing) using the font you desire.  Graphics appear the same in all web browsers, but graphics take much longer to load than text, so it’s always a good idea to use just a few graphics on each page, like for the title or logo.