The Motive Web Design Glossary
web fonts, web-safe typefaces, system fonts
web fonts
A web font is a typeface installed with a web browser, and typically (although not always) designed for screen-use. The term is also used to describe typefaces that can be used by designers when authoring webpages.
web-safe typefaces
For text on a webpage to be displayed (set) in a specific typeface, as HTML-text, the typeface must be available (installed) on the user’s computer. When a typeface is installed on a significant proportion of computers used to access the web, it is referred to as ‘web-safe’.
Listing installed typefaces
In Microsoft Word, you can view the typefaces installed on your computer through the Formatting palette.
system fonts
Along with the typefaces installed with a browser, the typefaces used by the computer operating system (system fonts) are often considered web-safe. (Operating systems include Windows 2000, Windows XP, Classic Macintosh and Macintosh OS X).
System fonts are used to display operating system interface elements, including filename labels, menus and dialogue boxes. Note that system fonts differ between Macintosh and Windows operating systems.
anti-aliasing, bitmap, CSS, HTML-text, pixel
References and further reading
- Fonts
for the Web (Rob Collins)
Image-based type specimens including platform support details and stylesheet family name. - Font sampler and survey FAQ (codestyle.org)
Type specimens (HTML-text and images) of Windows and Macintosh system fonts. Includes a list of the fonts commonly available for Windows. - Font stack matrix (Richard Rutter, 24 Ways)
A table showing the fonts installed with Mac and Windows operating systems, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Creative Suite (Adobe Creative Suite is a package of programs used in the design industry). - Microsoft
Typography (Microsoft)
A key resource for information on web typography developments.- Core fonts for the web
- Fonts supplied with other products
A list of system fonts and fonts installed with non-Microsoft programs.
- Screenfont (Joe Clark)
Project to research and develop a set of standards for [video/DVD/film] captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing. - How to size text in CSS (Richard Rutter, A List Apart)
Methods of setting text size: pixels, ems, and percentages. - Text-sizing: The ground will not be friends with you (The Noodle Incident)
264 screenshots showing font-sizing options. - Typetester (Marko Dugonjiç)
Compare the onscreen display of web-safe and Macintosh and Windows default (system) typefaces. (Requires JavaScript.) - Web typeface specimen screens (Motive)
Specimen screens showing typefaces commonly used in web design, including weights, styles and CSS sizing methods.
Glossary A-Z