Several clients have asked our guidance about the best type and size of font for their site. The answer is, there is no best type and size. Types are limited to certain fonts that are supported by the operating system (Mac, Windows or Linux). As for font sizes, the standard for web browsers would be 11px or 12px but that is just for web browsers. Nowadays, we have to cater to the iphone, pda, and other mobile devices.
Survey of supported font types
. Info sourced by Codestyle.
Font name
| Microsoft Sans Serif | 99.40% | |
| Arial Black | 96.85% | |
| Franklin Gothic Medium | 96.79% | |
| Palatino Linotype | 96.33% | |
| Verdana | 95.97% | |
| Comic Sans MS | 95.44% | |
| Arial | 95.40% | |
| Lucida Console | 95.29% | |
| Courier New | 95.14% | |
| Impact | 95.02% | |
| Tahoma | 94.95% | |
| Sylfaen | 94.19% | |
| Trebuchet MS | 93.66% | |
| Lucida Sans Unicode | 91.57% | |
| Georgia | 89.18% | |
| Arial Narrow | 86.02% | |
| Century Gothic | 83.63% | |
| Bookman Old Style | 83.06% | |
| Times New Roman | 82.80% | |
| Vrinda | 82.57% | |
| Kartika | 82.36% | |
| Book Antiqua | 82.07% | |
| Monotype Corsiva | 81.14% | |
| Garamond | 76.72% | |
| Lucida Sans | 75.65% | |
| Haettenschweiler | 70.15% | |
| MS Reference Sans Serif | 67.74% | |
| Bradley Hand ITC | 59.12% | |
| Papyrus | 58.92% | |
| French Script MT | 58.32% | |
| Tempus Sans ITC | 58.12% | |
| Edwardian Script ITC | 57.11% | |
| Franklin Gothic Book | 57.11% | |
| Franklin Gothic Medium Cond | 56.91% | |
| Perpetua | 56.91% | |
| Copperplate Gothic Light | 56.71% | |
| Lucida Bright | 56.71 | |
| Curlz MT | 56.51% | |
| Engravers MT | 56.31% | |
| Franklin Gothic Demi | 56.31% |
As you can see, only a few have 90% or more supporters. The recommended is to use the fonts with 90% or more installations. Other fonts maybe used using an image or a flash container.
