Although popular in print, serif fonts fare less well online. If using serifs, ensure you render
them large enough so that they don’t break down into an illegible mess. Georgia is
perhaps the best available web-safe serif, especially when used at sizes equivalent to
12 pixels and above, and it can be more suitable than a sans-serif if you’re working with
traditional subject matter, or if you’re attempting to emulate print articles (such as in the
following screenshot of the online column Revert to Saved; www.reverttosaved.com).
them large enough so that they don’t break down into an illegible mess. Georgia is
perhaps the best available web-safe serif, especially when used at sizes equivalent to
12 pixels and above, and it can be more suitable than a sans-serif if you’re working with
traditional subject matter, or if you’re attempting to emulate print articles (such as in the
following screenshot of the online column Revert to Saved; www.reverttosaved.com).
The other commonly available serif font, Times New Roman (Times being a rough equivalent
on Linux systems), is inferior to Georgia, but worth using as a fallback. Like Arial, its
popularity is the result of its prevalence as a system font.
Elsewhere, Palatino is fairly common—installed by default on Windows (as Palatino
Linotype), and available on Mac systems that have Classic or iWork installed. Mac owners
with Office will also have the virtually identical Book Antiqua. That said, if using these
fonts, you’ll still need to fall back to safer serifs, as mentioned earlier.
See the following illustration for a comparison of serif fonts on Mac (left) and Windows
(right).
on Linux systems), is inferior to Georgia, but worth using as a fallback. Like Arial, its
popularity is the result of its prevalence as a system font.
Elsewhere, Palatino is fairly common—installed by default on Windows (as Palatino
Linotype), and available on Mac systems that have Classic or iWork installed. Mac owners
with Office will also have the virtually identical Book Antiqua. That said, if using these
fonts, you’ll still need to fall back to safer serifs, as mentioned earlier.
See the following illustration for a comparison of serif fonts on Mac (left) and Windows
(right).
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