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CSS CSS Basics (2014) Understanding Values and Units Fonts and Line Height Review

Posted by dotz
dotz
6,733 Points

Default font

On the Quiz, I chose True for the question as to whether the user needs to have the fonts we use installed on their machines to view our site. I thought that as long as we chose sans-serif as the final default all browsers would be able to display readable content?

2 Answers

Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas
10,319 Points

It will be able to display readable content, but it won't display the font you've chosen to display.

Being able to show custom fonts the user needs it installed on his machine, but that's rarely the case. So we use @font-face to include the font in our website. More specifically our CSS document.

defining sans-serif is just a fallback, just to make sure the user can actually read something. But it won't create the visual effect you wish.

jasonjones5
PLUS
jasonjones5
Courses Plus Student 5,571 Points
jasonjones5
jasonjones5
Courses Plus Student 5,571 Points

In other areas of the courses (I think it's design a simple website but don't quote me on it) they routinely use web based fonts to deliver exactly the right font to the user. This might incur a small performance hit overall (arguable given that its Google's grunt delivering it) but the important thing is it's absolutely predictable. Your design remains consistent and doesn't break and everyone's happy. It also works the other way around in that you can design a site with a particular font in mind without worrying about how or where you're going to get it.