A Word About Font Stacks

The CSS font-family selector tells the browser which font to use. The font-family selector works by reading the first font in the list, it then looks to see if the client machine has that font installed. If not, it moves on to the next one in the list. If it doesn’t find a match it uses the generic (i.e. serif, sans-serif) of the font that is set in the browser’s preferences.

Note: Mark Simonson’s “The Scourge of Arial” is an excellent resource on both Arial’s history and its typographic deficiencies; the accompanying sidebar is an excellent primer on the specific differences between Helvetica and Arial.

View Artsite Framework’s installed font stacks (of course you can always create your own font stacks).