CSS FONT STACKS
What are font stacks?
Font stacks are about creating a relevant and comprehensive list of fall-back fonts.
Font stacks should take into account aspect ratio, platforms, operating systems etc.
A bad example
body { font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; } What’s wrong here?
Problem 1: There are a limited number of fallback fonts.
Problem 2: The fonts used may not be available for all operating systems (eg. Windows, Mac, Linux).
Problem 3: The fonts used have different “aspect ratios”
What is aspect ratio?
Some fonts, especially those specifically designed for screen, may appear wider and/or taller than other fonts.
This means that these fonts have a larger aspect ratio.
If you use fonts with different aspect ratio, some people may see your pages with a much smaller font size than others. body { font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; } Larger aspect ratio Smaller aspect ratio
Ideally, your font stacks should include a range of fonts that have a similar aspect ratio.
The basic font stacks based on aspect ratio
Wide sans-serif stack eg: Verdana Geneva
Narrow sans-serif stack eg: Tahoma Arial Helvetica
Wide serif stack eg: Georgia Utopia
Narrow serif stack eg: Times Times New Roman
Monospace stack eg: Courier Courier New
Some steps to creating a good font stack
1. Pick the font you like eg. Helvetica Neue
2. Determine which basic font-stack it belongs in eg. Narrow sans-serif
3. Choose a preferred Linux variation and a highly available variation eg. DejaVu Sans % availability on Linux URW Gothic L % availability on Linux
4. Choose a preferred Macintosh variation and highly available variation eg. Helvetica Neue % availability on Mac, Helvetica % availability on Mac
5. Choose a preferred Windows variation and a highly available variation eg. Arial % availability on Win, Microsoft Sans-serif % availability on Win
6. Include the generic font family eg. sans-serif
7. Make sure fonts with white-space in names are wrapped in single or double quotes. (eg. “Microsoft Sans-serif”)
body { font-family: "DejaVu Sans", "URW Gothic L", "Helvetica Neue”, Helvetica, Arial, "Microsoft Sans Serif", sans-serif; } A better font stack?
Results Font name DejaVu Sans URW Gothic L Helvetica Neue Helvetica Arial Microsoft Sans Serif sans-serif Windows 0.00% 1.51% 7.08% 90.79% 0.62% 0.00% Mac 0.00% 95.11% 4.89% 0.00% Linux 90.76% 8.98% 0.00% 0.07% 0.13% 0.00% 0.06%
A great font-stack builder Font stack
Russ Weakley Max Design Site: maxdesign.com.au Twitter: twitter.com/russmaxdesign Slideshare: slideshare.net/maxdesign Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/russweakley