HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
What is a font family anyway?
You've already come across the
font-family
property, and so far you've
always specified a value of “sans-serif ”. You can get a lot more creative than
that with the
font-family
property, but it helps to know what a font family
is first. Here's a quick rundown…
Each font-family contains a set of fonts
that share common characteristics. There
are five font families: sans-serif, serif,
monospace, cursive, and fantasy. Each
family includes a large set of fonts, so on
this page you'll see only a few examples
of each.
Sans-serif family
Trebu
chet MS
Arial
The seri
f family
includes
fonts wi
th
serifs. A
lot of
people as
sociate t
he look
of thes
e fonts w
ith news
paper pr
int.
Serifs are the
decorative barbs
and hooks on the
ends of the letters.
The
sans-ser
if family
includes
fonts
S
erif fam
ily
with
out serif
s. These
fonts ar
e
usua
lly consid
ered mor
e readab
le on
com
puter scr
eens tha
n serif f
onts.
T
im
e
s
Sans-serif means
“without serifs.”
T
imes New
Roman
Fonts aren't consistently available from one computer
to another. In fact, the set of available fonts will vary
depending on the operating system as well as what
fonts and applications a user has installed. So keep in
mind that the fonts on your machine may differ from
what is available to your users. And, as we said, we'll
show you how to extend the set of fonts in a bit…
Ge
or
gi
a
