(Shelly Cashman Series) Gary B. Shelly, H. Albert Napier, Ollie N. Rivers-Web design_ introductory concepts and techniques -Cengage Learning (2008)

134 Chapter 5 Typography and Images
Q&A
Can I add Web fonts
that are not currently
installed?
Yes. You can purchase
and download additional
Web fonts from
online sources, such as
Adobe Systems.
Sans serif fonts are a popular choice of many Web designers; however, the use of
sans serif fonts to enhance the readability of Web pages is not universal. As you browse
the Web, you will find pages using both serif and sans serif fonts. Despite a number of
research studies over the past 25 years, no clear direction exists regarding serifs and online
readability. Although some early studies point to sans serif fonts as more readable for
online text, more recent studies suggest that style, size, spacing between characters, contrast,
white space, line length, readers’ familiarity with the font, and other characteristics
might play a larger role in readability than the presence or absence of serifs. To enhance
readability, many Web designers today choose a serif or sans serif Web font, a font
specifically designed for online reading, such as Verdana (sans serif), Tahoma (sans serif),
or Georgia (serif), shown in Figure 5-4.
Figure 5-4 A Web font is designed specifically to enhance online reading.
Web browsers have both a default font and a default font size setting. If you do not
specify a font or font size using an HTML tag and attributes or CSS properties and
values, browsers will use their default font to display text. Times New Roman is the
default font for both Internet Explorer and Firefox, as shown in Figure 5-5. The default
font size for both Internet Explorer and Firefox is 16 pixels.
Internet Explorer
default font setting
Firefox default
font setting
Figure 5-5 Times New Roman isthe default font for both Internet Explorer and Firefox.