Introduction
Here is a list with the standard set of fonts common to all versions of Windows and their Mac substitutes,
referred sometimes as “browser safe fonts”.
Browsers can use only the fonts installed in the same computer, so it means that every visitor of your web page
needs to have all the fonts you want to use installed in his/her computer. Of course, different people will have
different fonts installed, and thus come the need of a standard set of fonts. Fortunately, CSS allows set several
values for the font-family property, which eases the task a bit.
The list
- The names in grey are the generic family of each font.
- In some cases the Mac equivalent is the same font, since Mac OS X also includes some of the fonts shipped with Windows.
- The notes at the bottom contains specific information about some of the fonts.
| Normal style | Bold style |
|---|---|
| Arial, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif | Arial, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif |
| Arial Black, Arial Black, Gadget, sans-serif | Arial Black, Arial Black, Gadget, sans-serif |
| Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans MS5, cursive | Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans MS5, cursive |
| Courier New, Courier New, Courier6, monospace | Courier New, Courier New, Courier6, monospace |
| Georgia1, Georgia, serif | Georgia1, Georgia, serif |
| Impact, Impact5, Charcoal6, sans-serif | Impact, Impact5, Charcoal6, sans-serif |
| Lucida Console, Monaco5, monospace | Lucida Console, Monaco5, monospace |
| Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande, sans-serif | Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande, sans-serif |
| Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua3, Palatino6, serif | Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua3, Palatino6, serif |
| Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif | Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif |
| Times New Roman, Times, serif | Times New Roman, Times, serif |
| Trebuchet MS1, Helvetica, sans-serif | Trebuchet MS1, Helvetica, sans-serif |
| Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif | Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif |
| MS Sans Serif4, Geneva, sans-serif | MS Sans Serif4, Geneva, sans-serif |
| MS Serif4, New York6, serif | MS Serif4, New York6, serif |
1 Georgia and Trebuchet MS are bundled with Windows 2000/XP and they are also included in the IE font pack (and bundled with other MS applications), so they are quite common in Windows 98 systems.
2 Symbolic fonts are only displayed in Internet Explorer, in other browsers a font substitute is used instead (although the Symbol font does work in Opera and the Webdings works in Safari).
3 Book Antiqua is almost exactly the same font that Palatino Linotype, Palatino Linotype is included in Windows 2000/XP while Book Antiqua was bundled with Windows 98.
4 These fonts are not TrueType fonts but bitmap fonts, so they won’t look well when using some font sizes (they are designed for 8, 10, 12, 14, 18 and 24 point sizes at 96 DPI).
5 These fonts work in Safari but only when using the normal font style, and not with bold or italic styles. Comic Sans MS works in bold but not in italic. Other Mac browsers seems to emulate properly the styles not provided by the font.
6 These fonts are present in Mac OS X only if Classic is installed.