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Chapter 3: The Face Attribute
The face attribute defines the style of the font--the shape of the individual letters. Font faces are identified by names; Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier are some commonly used names. When specifying a font in a Web page, you must be aware that any user's browser will be limited to displaying the fonts that he or she has installed on their system. In other words, you cannot be assured that your end users will be able to view the font you specify in the face attribute. The good news is that browsers handle this situation well. If the requested font is not available, they will choose a similar font that is available. In the worst case scenario, they will fall back on the default font. Your text will be displayed even if not in the exact font you wanted.
How can you tell what fonts are available even on your own system? The way I like best is to open your word processing program and open its Fonts list. This will list all the available fonts and, in come programs, will even display each font in that font so you can see what it looks like. This is shown for Microsoft Word in Figure 3-1.
Figure 3-1. Using a word processing program to view available fonts.
Another technique to view the available fonts is to open the Windows
Control Panel and double-click the Fonts icon. Windows will display a list
of all the available fonts, as shown in Figure 3-2. To see what a font looks
like, double-click its name.
Figure 3-2. Using the Fonts entry in the Control Panel to view available fonts.
The following fonts are widely used on the Web and you can assume that essentially all your site visitors will have them installed. When in doubt, stick to this list--they give you a good selection of styles.
Arial
Arial Black
Courier New
Times New Roman
Impact
Comic Sans MS
Georgia
Trebuchet MS
Verdana
CoffeeCup Software started in a real Coffee House 1996. Our first program was the HTML Editor. Over the last 10 years we have created a lot more Web Design & Flash Software. Our philosophy has always been to create software and services so you can make better Websites. We are dedicated to helping you by offering extraordinary support so we can succeed together. Consider us a partner and a friend, because we really are about Fresh Software and Warm People.
