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Q about website fonts...

evoluzione

evoluzione

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jul 19, 2002
2,016
9
down the road, that's where i'll always be
quick question (i hope)...

i'm building a site for some friends (i've done a couple of basic sites before) and i want to use the "papyrus" font for the paragraph text, can i do this? i'm confused by fonts in websites honestly. to use that font would i need to actually use an image instead of the font due to people not having it on their machines?

if that is the case, does anyone have any suggestions as to what i can do? i need to make the site (just the text content) easily editable to update info on a fairly regular basis.

thanks
 
Please, whatever you do, do not use Papyrus, Skia, Sand Font, Courier New, Comic Sans and so many others. The fonts are very unprofessional and hard to read.

Studies have shown that humans read serif fonts (like Times New Roman) on paper best/fastest and sans-serif fonts (like Helvetica, Arial, Verdana) on computers best. These fonts are very standard and can be used safely on the web.
 
Verdana is the best font ever - works for so much and looks great on the web.

And yes. Please. Whatever you do. No papyrus or comic sans... something about these fonts just doesnt sit right with me at all.
 
The whole idea is that the fonts you use that aren't graphics are managed by the viewer's computer. So, if they don't have Papyrus, they will get unexpected results. This is why designers usually stick to a handful of common fonts, and define them in css in sets that allow for second and third choice fonts to be substituted. So, if you want Papyrus, you need to make it a graphic.
 
System Fonts.

If someone doesn't have Payprus, then it will show their default font set for their browser. Your stuck with the basic fonts like Arial, verdana, tahoma, Georgia... Or you can make images out of it, but google won't pick it up and no one can copy paste. Bottom line..system fonts.
 
I'm fairly sure that there is a way to embed fonts/and or have them downloaded on demand. It's a Microsoft thing, I think, and so it may only work under IE. The following is extracted from 'HTML & XHTML: The complete Reference';

To embed fonts in a web document under IE, use the @font-face property. This allows the designer to specify fonts in the document that might not be available on the viewer's system. To embed a font, first specify the font-family property. Then specify the src property and set it equal to the URL of an embedded OpenType file, which should have an .eot extension. When the file is downloaded, it is converted to a True Type font and then displayed on the screen. By putting a rule such as the following in the style sheet, the font name GhostTown can be used elsewhere on the page by using the font-family property:

@font-face {font-family:GhostTown; src:url(http://www.yoururlhere/fonts/ghost.eot);}

To create a special embedded font file, the designer has to run the font through a tool to create the font definition file and then place that file on the web server. See the Microsoft Typography Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/typography for information about embedded font creation tool WEFT and other deploment issues.

I've never tried this but I'd be very interested to see if it works and whether it is an IE specific thing or if other browsers can do it too. Please do let us know how you get on, if you decide to try it.
 
Sorry this has kinda been hijacked into and "don't use these fonts" thread, but honestly, papyrus is SO late 90s and that's where it should stay. If you really want/have to use it, because the website's about Egypt or something like that, then perhaps consider just using it for headings, subheadings etc. There is nothing worse than unreadable text on a website that probably contains a lot of useful information.

Good luck with it! ;)
 
thanks everyone for the replies. i was actually going to use verdana as i like it and it's clean, which is good. the people i'm building it for liked the font and wanted to use it, but they'll probably want "editability" more, so i'll have to tell them it ain't possible with papyrus. fine by me :) i can use it for the menu and tagline etc, and that'll do.



thanks again!
 
londonweb said:
I've never tried this but I'd be very interested to see if it works and whether it is an IE specific thing or if other browsers can do it too. Please do let us know how you get on, if you decide to try it.
Click to expand...

This is part of the CSS 2 spec. I've never used it, and I'm unaware of the support in browsers for the @font-face property, but it's interesting none-the-less.
-Chasen
 
My designers would love it if it were feasible (even if only for the Windows audience) but so far i'm sticking to "you can have any font you like as long as it's Arial or Verdana, and preferably not Arial"
 
frankblundt said:
My designers would love it if it were feasible (even if only for the Windows audience) but so far i'm sticking to "you can have any font you like as long as it's Arial or Verdana, and preferably not Arial"
Click to expand...

A friend of mine has used Trebuchet to good effect...
 
ChicoWeb said:
System Fonts.

If someone doesn't have Payprus, then it will show their default font set for their browser. Your stuck with the basic fonts like Arial, verdana, tahoma, Georgia... Or you can make images out of it, but google won't pick it up and no one can copy paste. Bottom line..system fonts.
Click to expand...

let me just ask this question off the bat. are the system fonts for mac and windows the same?

is there no way to include the font used or intended for a website, once a page is being "downloaded"?
 
No, they are not completely the same, but they do share a bunch.

Some of the most common would be:
Arial
Helvetica
Times
Georgia
Geneva
Verdana
Courier

On a side note, and not that I necessarily recommend it, but if you are using Flash, you can easily embed entire fonts.
 
redAPPLE said:
let me just ask this question off the bat. are the system fonts for mac and windows the same?

is there no way to include the font used or intended for a website, once a page is being "downloaded"?
Click to expand...

No. (bar those mentioned above - and Helvetica, Geneva are not on my copy of XP, Times is Times New Roman, Georgia is not on my copy of Panther and Courier is, well, ugly)
londonweb said:
A friend of mine has used Trebuchet to good effect...
Click to expand...
Hadn't thought of that one. Looks nice.

And no, not in any widely supported sense (that i'm aware of)
 
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