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What is a Font? Rules and Guidelines Web Safe Fonts Font FAQ's

Fonts

CPH :  Guides :  Fonts

Font  FAQ's 1. My viewers tell me that my page is misaligned yet when I preview my page or view it online it looks just like I wanted it to look? 2. Why does the text on my page look different when viewing the page in Netscape? 3. Why do MacIntosh users say the text on my page is awkward or that my page does not look right? 4. I ABSOLUTELY MUST use a font that is not in the list above, what are my options? 5. What about text characters not on the keyboard? 6. Why do the Fonts used on my pages look awkward in WebTV browsers?

What is a Font? A design for a set of characters.  A font is the combination of typeface and other qualities, such as size, pitch, and spacing.  The height of characters in a font is measured in points, each point being about 1/72 inch.  The width is measured by pitch, which refers to how many characters can fit in an inch. There are several different computer representations for fonts, the most widely known are PostScript (.ps), TrueType (.ttf) and Generic (.fon).  Font Rules and Guidelines 1. Webpages do not support the use of any font.  Webpages require the use of TrueType Fonts.  The Windows operating system comes with sets of standard TrueType Fonts that have been preinstalled.  These fonts can be used on your webpages.  You may also go to the MS Windows Update website and download more free TrueType fonts for Internet Explorer. 2. Web browsers have settings that enable the user to choose the font that will be used for all text that is displayed on the webpage when the font type is not specicied in the HTML code.  Pages made with Cool Page do specify in the HTML code the font that is to be used. 3. Web browsers have settings that control the size of the text seen on a page when the font size is not specified in the HTML code.  Pages made with Cool Page do specify the font size in the HTML code. 4. The Windows Accessability feature will change the appearance of text and images on a users screen, making objects appear larger or smaller, depending upon the user's personal Accessability settiings. 5. Your viewers must have the same fonts installed on their computers that you have used on your pages in order for them to view the webpage as you intended them to see it.  If the viewer does not have the font specified in the HTML code installed on his computer, the web browser will automatically choose a font that it thinks is most similar to it in design. For these reasons, it is suggested that you use Web Safe Fonts. Web Safe Fonts Any TrueType Font installed on your computer can be used on your webpage, but just because it is a TrueType Font does not mean it's a Web Safe Font.  A Web Safe Font is one of the TrueType Fonts that come preinstalled on every Windows computer for use by web browsers and these fonts will display as intended by the webpage designer.  note: Many fonts are supplied by the different Windows operating systems and Windows software programs.  Not all of these fonts are preinstalled by the computer manufacturer or builder. The Web Safe Fonts are: Andale Mono Arial  (Cool Page calls the Arial font Helvetica in Text Toolbar) Arial Bold Arial Italic Arial Bold Italic Arial Black Comic Sans Comic Sans Bold Courier New (Cool Page calls this font Courier in Text Toolbar) Courier New Bold Courier New Italic Courier New Bold Italic Georgia Georgia Bold Georgia Italic Georgia Bold Italic Impact Times New Roman Times New Roman Bold Times New Roman Italic Times New Roman Bold Italic Trebuchet Trebuchet Bold Trebuchet Italic Trebuchet Bold Italic Verdana (coolpagehelp.com uses this font) Verdana Bold Verdana Italic Verdana Bold Italic Webdings  Webdings

Answers 1. My viewers tell me that my page is misaligned yet when I preview my page or view it online it looks just like I wanted it to look? The font you are using is a Non-Web Safe Font and that font is not installed on the viewers computer.  Only viewers with the same font installed can see the page as you intended. note: Page misalignment can also be caused by the improper use of the HTML Object Tool. 2. Why does the text on my page look different when viewing the page in Netscape? Internet Explorer and Netscape have different methods of displaying text on a webpage.  Text will always appear slightly smaller in Netscape browsers than in Internet Explorer and other browsers. 3. Why do MacIntosh users say the text on my page is awkward or that my page does not look right? Windows and MAC versions of web browsers differ in the way text is displayed in web browsers. Bothe IE and Netscape come in versions for MAC computers and they are quite different than the Windows versions of those web browsers. Try widening the text boxes in Cool Page, leaving a few extra spaces after the last letter in the text box.  This will allow the needed room for MAC browsers to display the font, otherwise some browsers could cause the sentance/word to undesirably wrap to the next line. 4. I ABSOLUTELY MUST use a font that is not in the list above, what are my options? Your options are: • Use the Non-Web Safe Font and risk having your page rendered poorly. • Use the Non-Web Safe Font and provide for your viewers the opportunity to download and install the font you have used, so that they can then see your page as you intended. • Use a graphics program to create an image with text in that font style. This method is the recommended solution and works well when used in place of text titles and paragraph headings on a page. 5. What about text characters not on the keyboard? See the Special Text Characters Guide. 6. Why do the Fonts used on my pages look awkward in WebTV browsers? WebTV browsers can ONLY use the Helvetica Font Styles.  If your page uses other fonts then te WebTV browser will try to display the text on the page in the Helvetica Font Style, possibly causing the page to misalign and display improperly.  See the WebTV Guide.

Using Special Text Characters