Web Safe Fonts or “Why can’t I use my favourite font on my website?”

You may be wondering why you are limited to only using a certain number of fonts on your website for the content text when you have a larger number of fonts on your computer that you would prefer to use.

The main reason is that your site will be viewed by various operating systems using various browsers that will each display your site differently.
Browsers - Internet Explorer 6 -7; Firefox 1-2; Safari.
Operating Systems - Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista; MacOS X 1.0 - 10.5; Linux.

Browsers can only use fonts that are installed on the computer/operating system of your site’s visitor. The chances of your visitors having all your favourite fonts installed would be rare and if you do use a non web safe font the user’s computer will default to a substitute font which will then change how you intended your site to look.

You can still use your favourite font or script as an image for logos and graphics ‘without over-use’ of course however, I would recommend you don’t use images for anything other than its visual effect, as smart as the search engines are, they are still unable to read the text that you have hidden away in the graphic.

Here is an example of a non web safe font shown as an image.

The only way to be sure that all versions of Windows and Mac computers are viewing your site’s content text as you would like it to be viewed - is to use ‘web safe fonts’. These are fonts that are both Windows default and Mac default fonts and are found on all computers ensuring that all your site’s visitors are seeing your site as you intended.

You may also want to have a look here at a Table of Most Used Web Fonts.

Here is a ’safe list’ - using images.