Notes

The sample "brown fox" text is set as font-size:14px;. The sample heading “Hamburgefonstiv,” which is a keyword used by type designers to test character proportions and letter spacing, is set as font-size:1.33em;, or 1.33 times the text size.

If you do not have a font installed on your machine the text will render in this font stack "Andale Mono", "Lucida Console", monospace.

See the entry A Word About Font Stacks for information about fonts, font stacks, and web typography.

These are the Core Web Fonts included on both Mac and PCs

Comic Sans has been left out because it’s... because it’s just too comical.

Impact is included but is really only usable for headings.

These are safe font stacks

Lucida Sans is not a core font, but Lucida Grande is installed on all Macs and Lucida Sans Unicode is installed on all Windows machines. Lucida Sans is installed by Micrsoft Office on both Macs and PCs and the reason it is listed first is because some versions contain true italics. If you see the word lazing with a single bowl italic “a” instead of a slanted double bowl “a” then you have Lucida Sans installed.

The Gill Sans stack should work on most all computers. Gill Sans comes on all Macs and Gill Sans MT is installed with Microsoft Office, and Calibri (which is a good stand-in for Gill Sans) is one the core Vista fonts and is installed with both Office Windows and Office Mac. And lastly, if all else fails, use Trebuchet.

Somewhat safe font stacks

Actually the Minion stack is very safe because Minion’s metrics are similar to Times. Besides it being more elegant then Times, it is much more readable then Times, if you use Times, then you’re better off using Minion. Minion Pro™ is installed by all Adobe products.

Century Gothic is installed by Microsoft Office on PCs and with some Mac versions, and AppleGothic is installed on all Macs. Lastly, for PCs without Century Gothic use Arial.

Apple Chancery is installed on all Macs and Monotype Corsiva is installed by all Microsoft software products. To be safe include Georgia as the last font and set the font style to italic font-style:italic; The chancery fonts do not have an italic so they won’t be affected by the italic styling.

Mac font stacks

Optima is installed on all Macs, and Candara, which is a decent stand-in for Optima, is one of the core Vista fonts and is installed with both Office Windows and Office Mac. And lastly, if all else fails, use Trebuchet.

For elegent headings Helvetica Neue Light is a great choice. Helvetica Neue is installed on all Macs, and some Windows machines may have it, but this stack will fall back to Helvetica/Arial.