I have seen this post What is the default font family in HTML and how can I check this?
However, I have a few more specific questions, for the following simple HTML code, when it is displayed in a browser, will the browser use system font, i.e., the fonts in /windows/fonts, to render the web page content?
According to https://granneman.com/webdev/coding/css/fonts-and-formatting/web-browser-font-defaults, different browser use different default font, which means when the page is displayed in different browsers, the content will indeed display differently, correct? Chrome on Windows uses Arial by default, but what if the local computer does not have this font installed, will the browser use a different font, or will it display blank?
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Stack Overflow
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System fonts are fonts installed on the user's system. If your web site does not choose a font to use, then that user's system font will be used. Different systems have different fonts. System fonts on Windows may not be the same as fonts on Macs or Linux or BSD. Browsers do not have fonts themselves. It is not up to the browser to decide what those system fonts are.
The default fonts in all browsers are Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, and sans-serif. All computer systems have these by default, pre-installed with the operating system. It's a standard. They're there. Unless a user has deleted them everyone has them. Therefore any of those will display.
If the user does not have the font the web page code instructs to be used their computer system will use whatever their default font is set to. It will not display a blank page.
To use a specific font:
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/html/html_fonts.htm#:~:text=You%20can%20use%20a%20<basefont,use%20the%20tag.
That will work as long as the user has that font installed as the demonstrations on that page show.
To use a custom font:
How do I install a custom font on an HTML site
If you're not happy with these links this information is readily available on many different sites and in a ton of different articles that can be found by searching for it.
Related
I'm trying to build a web page and need some kind of fairly distinct cursive font (not too crazy, but still distinguishable from standard print). However, when I look at this page in Firefox: https://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/fonts.en.html
My browser renders all of them in an approximately standard font--none of them look nearly cursive enough. Since this is just an out-of-the-box installation of Firefox, I imagine this is how it will render on most users' screen if they're using the same.
Is there any way to force render a more cursive font for someone using standard Firefox?
As was mentioned earlier, the font in that example varies depending on device, not browser.
When you set a non-specific font-family in your stylesheets, e.g. font-family:sans-serif; or font-family:cursive; what font that actually gets used will depend entirely on that visitors operating system and what fonts are installed there.
In that link it shows you various system fonts that may or may not be installed, with system defaults as a fallback, with a picture next to each showing what it should look like if your system has that font. This will differ from person to person. It gets quite complicated when you consider that sometimes the fallback fonts can even vary between OS versions.
So for more complete control, many developers turn to webfonts. I use a lot of Google fonts for my websites; https://fonts.google.com/
There are different ways of using a webfont, but I find this way simplest;
/*put imports at the top of your stylesheet*/
#import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Lobster&display=swap');
h2 {font-family:"Lobster", cursive;}
<h2>I'm A Webfont</h2>
Relating the mechanism which permit a browser to display correctly a text formatted wiht a certain Font-Family, it should be described in this way:
the font-family property lets designers specify a prioritized list of fonts for the browser to use to display content. If the preferred font is not installed on the user's computer, the browser will attempt to use the second font in the list. If the user does not have of the preferred fonts installed, a default font is used to display the content.
In Windows 7 the set of fonts installed on the user's computer font should be viewed in Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Fonts.
Now in my installed fonts "Open sans" is not listed, and yet my IE11 are able to correctly reproduce a text formatted in "Open sans".
Where is the repository where IE11 get the "Open sans" font?
Thank you very much
Because of #font-face:
The #font-face rule allows for linking to fonts that are
automatically fetched and activated when needed. This allows authors
to select a font that closely matches the design goals for a given
page rather than limiting the font choice to a set of fonts available
on a given platform.
I know not every platform contains the same font faces. What would happen if a font face that is not known is used? Is it possible to be downloaded or would it choose a different font face?
The browser will use a default font. You can control your styling by coding backup fonts to use if your first pref isn't supported.
Below is an example of styling backup fonts in CSS.
P { font-family: Cambria, Georgia, Serif }
Hope this helps!
Generally, a browser will default to a font that the computer has installed, usually Arial (windows) or Helvetica (mac). There are several solutions, my favorite resource for web fonts is Google Web Fonts, absolutely free. If you have to have a particular font, Typekit has the largest selection, but be prepared to pay!
With Google Web Fonts, literally just google: Google Web font similar to (The Font you want).
Hope this helps!
If the name of font not installed in the user’s system is mentioned in a font-family declaration (or in a <font> tag), then that name is simply ignored. No automatic download takes place. (Downloadable fonts, aka. web fonts, are a different story, but for them, you really specify font URLs and assign names to them.)
The font used is then determined by other factors. If other fonts are listed in the font-family list, they are tried. Failing that, the font of the parent element is used. Ultimately, if we then come to the top level, the document as a whole, without finding any font name known in the system, then the browser’s default font is used. This font is typically changeable by the user, though few people change it. Typically it is Times New Roman in Windows systems.
I am developing the frontend of a web application and the design requires the use of the Segoe UI font. I used this font for a few text areas but in non Windows systems (Mac OS borwsers, Android, etc) those texts don't render with the Segoe UI font.
After googling this I found that this font is used by Microsoft. My question is. Can just use the font files in the frontend an use #face-font to include the font in the frontend? Or do I need some licence or something like that?
You can't license Segoe UI from Microsoft without direct contact, you can license the mono font from Ascender Corp who are linked to from Microsoft webpage for Segoe UI, however it is not the same as Segoe UI.
I would suggest Open Sans as an alternative to the Segoe UI font, it is quite similar and has much more open licensing for using as webfont (that link is actually to Google's hosted version of the font) - So you could have Segoe as the main font then fall back to Open Sans on non Windows 7+ Systems.
Technically you can embed the font through css, but I don't think the license will allow you do do that legally. Couldn't find out right off the bat though - msft's licensing is as always a maze to navigate.
Could you find an alternative font on Google web fonts or Typekit and use instad? They all have permissive licenses? (Open Sans is quite similar, for example)
If you are using CSS simply call the font in a font stack. It can be the first font or listed second or third. Each device or browser will use the fonts in your list as they are found on the system. If you put a Mac-only font first, Windows systems will default to the second or third font it finds installed.
If you want to host the font yourself, be mindful that some devices will not support certain fonts and you'll still need to list alternative fonts no matter what. Check your analytics to see what types of devices and browsers are visiting. Pick the most popular as your main font and then add fonts for the others in descending order.
There's no guarantee that any font will actually load. There are too many variables and the users can always uninstall fonts or shut off javascript and other nonsense that can drive a web designer crazy.
I use a combination of hosted and installed fonts in most of my sites, especially when design is more critical.
I've been displaying Chinese fonts on my Chrome browser on my Mac and I liked it. However the font is rendered differently in Firefox or when I use Chrome on Windows. Is there a way to standardize the font that the browser chooses for Chinese characters?
You have various options:
As Art of FITZ says, specify an #font-face and have the font downloaded to the user (which will, indeed, take up a lot of bandwidth if the font is large)
As Jukka says, provide a list of font names in the font property and hope one of these is installed on the user's computer
The legacy method: render the text on your own computer in the font of your choice, upload this as an image file. If you don't have much text to display, this may be even more efficient than having an #font-face clause that downloads a multi-megabyte font file.
Tailor the #font-face to your needs: Depending on the amount of text to display, you may be able to create a font with only the subset of characters you need (with an online utility such as Font Squirrel), reducing the size of the font file to download.
Here is a quick reference to how this line of code is used.
http://www.css3.info/preview/web-fonts-with-font-face/
Different browsers have different default fonts, but can can override this by setting font-family in CSS. Just remember that different computers have different sets of fonts available, so you should normally use a list of fonts, hopefully covering most browsing situations.
Maybe you have done so but see different results on different browsers. Please post a relevant part of the code and/or a URL then.