i have been building a website using a windows development box so far. the site has turned out well, until i noticed that the same pages appear a little out of place as far as alignment is concerned in a linux dev box. the issue is because of the font being used in both these boxes.
here's my css -
font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;
the entire site has been designed with tahoma as the base font, and so if the font changes, because of the inherent width/height difference between fonts, they might end up taking more space for the same word than tahoma, and result in layout issues. Even in the windows box, if tahoma is not available, then the site would fallback into sans-serif which would most likely cause problems. so to say, the site is designed for tahoma users :D (i know this is bad practice).
while this maynot be a problem since tahoma will be present in all windows boxes, linux/ other OS users would face layout problems.
how do i resolve this issue..? i still want to use tahoma in the site.
In my experience you can never expect that a font on a web page will look exactly as you expected in all browsers / OSs. Flash does come close with the embedding feature, but for good ol HTML/CSS the best thing I've seen is TypeKit. I looked and they do not have Tahoma, but they likely have something similar to it.
As a general rule, I try to design my pages to allow for font displaying variations.
Related
Recently had a customer send in a ticket complaining that their font has changed (within the week or so). The font on the site has not changed in probably a decade. What I suspect is that perhaps a recent windows up that times in line with the change is effecting the font he sees, or, more likely, a setting changed on his end.
the font we use
font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif
It is my understanding that Helvetica Neue will likely get replaced by something else on windows since, just from googling, I find that font is not included in windows.
My question is, is there any way I can help debug this on his end to figure out exactly what is going on? It does make the site difficult to read for this user and I would like to fix it, and also know for sure what I am talking about. I usually try very hard not to just reply with, "looks good on my machine". Inspecting it shows the same font family as what I posted above.
None of the font options in that css appear to be what is showing.
The one distinguishing trait I can see in the font is the letters de overlap or touch.
This is for web content, the browsers mentioned where most recent Chrome, which I also tested on (verified exact same version numbers) and did not have the issue, and Edge which I do not have.
If you can't access their computer, it's going to be hard to pinpoint the exact cause. Windows font substitution is the normal culprit in this situation:
As stated here:
https://office-watch.com/2021/windows-substituting-arial-font-for-helvetica/
"Windows is setup to use Arial whenever it sees a reference to ‘Helvetica’. This happens at the Windows level and doesn’t just apply to Microsoft Office. Most web browsers get the same thing – web pages that ask for ‘Helvetica’ to display in web page will get the Arial font instead. It drives web designers crazy, especially since CSS has a way to choose from a family of preferred fonts.
Way down in the bowels of the Windows Registry is HCLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\NTCurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes which lists the substitutions."
Additionally, if you run a comparison of arial vs helvetica neue...using the word video you mentioned, you get this:
Notice the difference in kerning (separation between letters/characters) between characters 'd' and 'e'. Arial appears 'clumped' when compared to Helvetica Neue.
I have no reputable source to provide, but this exact situation has happened to me before. It was caused by me installing a faulty font of a similar name.
It was hell to read most websites and I had to get a chrome extension to change everything to Arial to be readable. Ask them if they're having this problem on other websites as well then tell them to delete the "Helvetica Neue" font file on their computer (Mine was named Helvatica Neue56878 if it helps). This solved the problem for me.
How to debug: Check whether the specific computer have the Helvetica font installed. You can do this by going to the Fonts settings of windows. To open Font Settings just open windows search and type Font:
Font Settings will show you Available Fonts that are installed in your computer. Type Helvetica in the search bar and see if Helvetica font is installed:
If it's not, you can go and download and install the font on that computer and the problem would be solved.
CSS solution: To avoid this problem from happening in the future, you can include the font's .ttf file in your project and use #font-face to set it as a font on your project.
#font-face {
font-family: "digital-7";
font-style: normal;
src: url("~/assets/fonts/digital-7.ttf");
}
You can use it like so:
.container{
font-family: "digital-7";
font-size: 4em;
color: black;
}
I know this is an extremely basic and stupid question, but I seem to be having a genuinely curious problem.
When using what are supposed to be web-safe fonts like Didot, and using
header h1{
font-family: Didot, serif;
font-size: 36px;
}
my browser just displays the standard serif font.
In fact I can't seem to get it to display any web safe font, it will only display either the standard serif or sans-serif font. I know my selector is correct because I CAN change between serif and sans-serif, but I know its not displaying other web-safe fonts because I tried both Arial and Helvetica (which are both definitely web safe) and when I refreshed from one to another there was absolutely no difference in the font displayed.
I'm a complete beginner and I'm using the simplest possible beginner environment, just an html page linking to a css file which I'm opening with my browser (the url shows up as file:///C:/Users/Agent%201/Desktop/Web%20Projects/ResumeSite/index.html if that is at all relevant). I've tried opening it with both chrome and edge, same results on both
Is there something wrong with my css? Or are there limitations when just opening a local html file with my browser?
Sorry if I'm this is a really dumb question, but I really can't find an answer as to why my fonts aren't working, I've tried !important and some other weird solution I found which involves changing the selector to "header h1, header h1 *" and that did nothing.
Thank-you for any help you can provide me!
When using what are supposed to be web-safe fonts like Didot, and using...
Didot is not a "web-safe" font.
Didot is included with macOS, which may lead some web-designers to assume that it's also available on other platforms (like Windows, Linux and Android) or that those platforms have automatically-mapped equivalents (like how many browsers will map Helvetica to Arial), however that is not guaranteed.
Also, just because a typeface is included with an OS does not mean it is licensed to you to use commercially or in a website - you can be sued for publishing an OS-licensed font onto the public web without having your own font-license.
A "web-safe" font is a typeface that is broadly installed and supported by most contemporary browsers without the need for additional downloads or font installations.
Many typefaces are broadly installed, such as Microsoft's Core fonts for the web which are preinstalled on all Windows computers - and many other operating systems such as macOS either come with the same fonts or have very similar equivalents (e.g. Helvetica instead of Arial) which are automatically mapped by the browser.
The only way to determine if a font is "web-safe" is by doing your own leg-work and manually checking to see if all-or-most of your target users' devices have that typeface available. You can check font availability on Wikipedia and other sites:
macOS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typefaces_included_with_macOS
Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typefaces_included_with_Microsoft_Windows
iOS: http://iosfonts.com/
Android: Consult Android's fonts.xml for the minimum set of stock fonts and default fallback mappings (e.g. "Helvetica" goes to "sans-serif").
You might notice that Android's font list is very... short. That's because the base Android OS isn't what ships on most peoples' phones: Google's layer on top of Android, and OEMs (like Samsung, etc) will add their own fonts on top, but I don't know where to get that list from at-present, sorry.
A "web-safe font stack" means that at least one of the fonts listed in a font-family property value can be safely assumed to be available for use, not that all of them are - nor that the first-preferred-font will be available.
And any font-family list can be made "safe" by adding a CSS fallback generic-family name to the end (i.e. specifying the least-preferred font). Those names are specified in the CSS Fonts Module and are:
serif
sans-serif
cursive
fantasy
monospace
In your case, the property font: Didot, serif is "web-safe" because it has the serif generic-family name at the end. Your visitors will only see the Didot font being used if they already have it installed on their computer, phone, tablet, etc.
If you do want to use Didot, then you need to publish it as a WOFF file and add it to your stylesheet with a #font-face rule: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/using-font-face/
I am working on a theme for a new website. We had some professional graphics help us design the theme. For the front page, they took and tweaked the Agency theme.
If you download that theme (it is free) and search for the agency.css file and open it, there is one CSS line to indicate the default font of the page:
body
{
font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
}
As we can see, the specified fonts in font-family start with "Roboto Slab", then it goes on with "Helvetica Neue", "Helvetica", "Arial", and finally, the default "sans-serif" that the browser would be happy about.
Only the "Roboto Slab" font is a "serif" font, all the others are "sans-serif" fonts...
As a designer, would you say that this is a mistake? Because if your computer does not include the font or if the font is somehow not available at the link above, it would go from a "serif" font to a "sans-serif" font... That seems wrong to me.
There are two different aspects you should consider:
Providing different font families for the same text is no longer needed in modern web.
This is a legacy technique back from when fonts were required to be installed on a machine in order to be used for rendering a web page. Since we now are able to provide fonts as css files and load them using #font-face declarations, (which I assume your website uses), the fallback only occurs when the machine rendering the website fails at loading the provided font file (this is extremely rare and, when it happens, it is likely that fonts rendering with a different face is not the most serious rendering problem of the page - so the best course of action would probably be to just reload the page).
If the second and the third font options were provided by the designer (provided they are professionals) the fonts were probably matched with your other main font and, even though it's part of a different type, it will still complement the other font well.
I'd like to point out I actually have design related studies but have turned into a professional coder over the past ~10 years.
Choosing and matching fonts is a complex process and more often than not, the right size, weight or style weigh in more than whether the font is serif, sans-serif, monotype or fantasy. There's no recipe for matching fonts and usually it involves taking a step back and looking through dimmed eyes. It's also important one also tests with multiple types and combinations of content, to make sure they all are balanced and look well.
In design, following strict rules gets you above average results, but never in the top 10%. Those are most times based on bold actions and inspiration. Don't measure the designer's work using a ruler. If you really need to, measure it in terms of user behavior. If there's an increase in traffic/response/commitment, you got a good design.
The answer you will get from a question like this will to some degree be based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise. My opinion is that all important browsers support web fonts. If the web font is used correctly it will show correctly to 99.9% of the site visitors. The other fonts listed is just fallbacks for the 0.1% visitors that for some reason is not able to load the custom web font. The most important thing is that they will be able to read your content. If you would like to control the fallback font, you should choose a set of system native fonts present on all platforms. You could use courier, but that is a mono spaced font (fixed-width) and I doubt it is more readable or fancy. A sans serif is also more modern than e.g. Times and therefore closer to the modern look of Roboto Slab.
Our web designer suggested using Cambria as a font. In looking at various font references online, we couldn't find authoritative sources that listed recent (post 2010) browser support for various fonts.
Which sources do you use to determine how supported a particular font is? I'm guessing there are reports for fonts like there are for browsers, but we haven't found anything reliable yet.
I think you don't need to worry too much about native browser support for fonts. Instead you should consider two things:
Using #font-face
Using a good font stack
Combine the two and you should be safe, no matter what.
For #font-face, you can generate the font and make it cross-browser compatible.
Start by licensing the font from here ( http://new.myfonts.com/search/cambria/ ) or somewhere else.
Then generate the #font-face code with Font Squirrel ( http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fontface/generator ) or another service. The result will be cross browser compatible in nearly all cases.
Finally, add the font to a font stack so that there is a fall back in case something happens with your custom Cambria font. Something like this for whichever rule you are working with: font-family: Cambria, Georgia, Palatino, Times New Roman, serif;
Of course, you could also choose a similar free font through Font Squirrel or use Google's Web Fonts.
More good info here: http://sixrevisions.com/css/font-face-guide/
You won't find Cambria and the other fonts in its family natively installed on computers running anything but Windows Vista and newer, and you'll only have luck on other systems if they have Office 2007/2008 and newer installed.
As long as the font is present on a user's computer, any browser should be able to handle it, even without the need for #font-face embedding. The idea of font embedding is to get a browser to recognize and use a font that isn't installed on a user's system, rather than getting the browser to understand and render the font.
You're not going to find something that works on everything. Try Cambria, Georgia, serif; Georgia's a reasonably close substitute that's very widespread, and the serif default will work anywhere.
Discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambria_%28typeface%29
The browser doesn't have much to say as to the fonts it supports; they are dictated by the fonts present in the underlying OS.
It's hard to find support references for particular fonts. However, #font-face is widely supported and regardless, a good font stack with fail-safe fonts is a must-have.
I actually have right now two questions:
1) What font faces are preferred for a website? Right now I really like 'Segoe UI', but it's only available on newest Windows systems like Vista and 2008 Server. So I have defined a sequence:
font-family: 'Segoe UI', Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif;
I do not really like the look of all of them except for 'Segoe UI'. Any suggestions on what nice font could be used in addition to that? I also tried 'Trebuchet MS', it looks great on documents, but not really on a page.
2) Any way to specify with CSS different font sizes for each particular font-familiy? Like 'Segoe UI - 9px', Tahoma - 8px etc. This is probably not possible, but maybe there are some tricks?
I also know I will get lots of comments now to use relative font sizes, but I don't want that. I have some graphics in my design which are not stretchable. If the user or browser default lead to the font rendered with a varying size the design will quite soon fall apart. I prefer having design with font size limitations to not having design at all.
1) What font faces are preferred for a website?
See this page concerning safe web fonts.
2) Any way to specify different font sizes for each particular font-family through CSS?
Nope.
Soon, #font-face will be supported by all major browsers, and you'll be able to use any font you want on your website.
Until then, have a look at Cufón or sIFR.
Use the right typeface for your site. It's not as simple as saying "this is the best font for websites". Here are two quotes (read principles) from Robert Bringhurst's "The Elements of Typographic Style":
"Typography exists to honor content."
"Choose faces that suit the task as well as the subject."
On another note, unless a serif face really suits the website, sans-serif faces are more appropriate for digital media.
With regards to your second point, Phil Oye has recently released FontUnstack, a jQuery plugin which will tell you what font is being used for a given element. The element will be given a class (i.e. "set_in_gill_sans") through which you can apply specific styles for different typefaces.
Also, check out the font matrix (1.5 years old) and these well thought-out font-stacks.
1) What font faces are preferred for a website? Right now I really like
'Segoe UI', but it's only available on
newest Windows systems like Vista and
2008 Server. So I have defined a
sequence: font-family: 'Segoe UI',
Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif;
I do not really like the look of all
of them except for 'Segoe UI'. Any
suggestions on what nice font could be
used in addition to that? I also tried
'Trebuchet MS', it looks great on
documents, but not really on a page.
What font faces are preferred? This is a tough question. There are three main computing platforms that each have their own set of base fonts. Then, some software like Adobe Creative Suite, the Microsoft Office suite, or even software as simple as the Powerpoint 2007 viewer for XP install fonts for the user. There's lot of charts on the web that list commonly used fonts.
For a website, you're going to want to use legible fonts. Most of the screen fonts commonly used on the web are pretty legible. The fonts you mention for instance are good examples. The most legible on screen font is Verdana, although it's generally considered to be ugly. Arial is always a safe choice.
Just be careful with that Segoe UI declaration though: if a Windows XP user has that font, it probably won't be legible with anti aliasing disabled.
For headings, you can go custom and use techniques like sIFR and Cufon to replace the text with non-native system fonts.
A quick note on size: most sites tend to set a really small font size. 13 pixels really is the minimum for long texts (see relative readibility). A font with a small x-height like Times should only be used for headings or in a large enough size (e.g. 15+ pixels).
2) Any way to specify with CSS different font sizes for each
particular font-familiy? Like 'Segoe
UI - 9px', Tahoma - 8px etc. This is
probably not possible, but maybe there
are some tricks?
No, this is not possible. You can make assumptions about the browser and OS people are running via Javascript and thus make assumptions about the fonts they have installed, but it's a lot of work for a relatively small gain. I would advise against it.
Re. your font choice, I would consider usability to be a key requirement (unless you're going for a deliberately styled format).
Neilson made a study and found Verdana or Arial to be optimal choices in terms of legibility.
CSS3 will natively support downloadable fonts (you won't be promted to download, they will just work on the fly), so you will be able to use whatever typeface you want. We just have to wait for it a but since it will be available only in Firefox 3.5 and Opera 10.
You can also use classic fonts like: Arial/Helvetica, Verdana, Georgia, or even Times Roman for great visual impact. You just need to find the right font-size and contrast with other elements on the page.
Just personally, I like Verdana and Georgia, though they are only Mac/Windows-"safe". In your case perhaps it's best to select second-choice font which has the same metrics as your first choice.
Most major browsers already support #font-face so you can use any openly available font.
Google Web Fonts hosts some free fonts to choose from:
There are also paid websites like Typekit that will host paid fonts for you and let you buy them: