HTML font families group similar fonts for web pages. Using a generic font family avoids display issues on different devices. The three most common font families are sans-serif, serif, and monospace. Designating a font family involves using CSS tags to apply the first available font.
An HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) font family is a group of similar typographic choices rendered in the encoding of a web page. Setting up a generic HTML font family provides a range of fonts that can appear when different web users open a published website. Most computer users have only a limited number of font choices on their computers, depending on factors such as their operating systems and web browser choices. Web programmers who encode a specific font for all of their text can limit the number of visitors to the site because that font may not display correctly on everyone’s monitor screen. Using an HTML font family usually avoids this problem, and experienced web designers usually choose at least one of the three most common font families.
Working with HTML involves a number of design decisions for creating a website that is attractive and easy to use. One of the most common beginner mistakes is selecting a font that is difficult for many users to read and may not display correctly in all browsers. This type of text often belongs to the HTML font family designated fancy or decorative. While these fonts may look trendy, most web designers recommend using them sparingly and for further embellishment as a drop cap at the start of a paragraph.
The three most common choices for web page text are sans-serif, serif, and monospace. Sans-serif letters are built from straight lines and include popular fonts like Arial and Helvetica. Serif fonts such as Times New Roman have a tail on each stroke of each letter which can make large blocks of this text more difficult to read on a computer screen. Monospaced fonts are normally only used for descriptions of tags or code elements to distinguish them from the rest of the web copy; a website about HTML coding can often have examples of tags rendered in monospace, for example.
Designating an HTML font family involves instructing the web browser to apply the first available font in a set to a web page. If the first font is not available on a particular user’s computer, the browser will look for and render the second character available. A web designer who wants to apply an HTML font family to a page can use the font-face tag or the font-family property tag in a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) declaration.
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