I
have only seen this used as a collection name in CSS, but perhaps I
don??™t get out enough.
serif no serif
FIGURE 3.1 Serif fonts have noticeable
details at the ends of the character
strokes. Sans-serif fonts do not
have these details.
Both serif and sans-serif fonts are
proportionally spaced, which means
each character only takes up the
space required for it, so an ???i??? takes
up less space than an ???m.???
My general advice is to stick to serif,
sans-serif, and monospace font collections.
If you want to use cursive
or fantasy, proceed with caution and
test, test, test.
STYLIN??™ WITH CSS - CHAPTER 3 70
FIGURE 3.2 Generic font families as displayed by
Safari Mac 2.0.4.
FIGURE 3.3 Generic font families, as displayed by
Firefox Mac 1.0.4.
FIGURE 3.4 Generic font families, as displayed by
Internet Explorer 6 for Windows. They look virtually
identical on IE7.
FIGURE 3.5 Generic font families, as displayed by
Firefox Windows 2.0.4.
STYLIN??™ FONTS AND TEXT 71
If you want to specify a generic font, you write a declaration like this
body {font-family:sans-serif;}
In this case, the browser dishes up Helvetica or Arial or whatever
sans-serif font is set as its default and is also on the viewer??™s computer
(Figures 3.2??“3.5). It??™s the most basic way to specify a font. But
you can be more speci?¬? c and declare a font family by name; usually,
that??™s what you want to do.
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