![]() Mac designers hate this phenomenon because it forces all of their type to flow differently than intended. In case you’re bad at math, the difference between 96 ppi and 72 ppi (24 pixels) makes the fonts on a Web page look 33 percent larger when viewed on a Windows machine. In contrast, Windows renders type at a notional screen resolution of 96 ppi. They render text at a screen resolution of 72 pixels per inch (ppi), which syncs perfectly with the print industry’s type specification system of 72 points per inch. Because of the differences between the Mac and PC operating systems, text specified at the same point size will be rendered at different screen sizes on the two platforms. As the cynical in the crowd might suspect, specifying these attributes doesn’t always give you great control over the appearance of your Web pages. ![]() Style sheets let you specify not just the font, but also attributes such as point size, indents, and letter and line spacing. This will help ensure a more consistent look across Macs and PCs.Ĭascading Style Sheets (CSS) provide Web designers with a lot of control over the appearance of text. You should also try to list fonts that have similar characteristics - especially character width and stroke weight. ![]() You can list as many fonts as you like, but make sure you list them in your order of preference. This technique is recommended for both the standard tag (shown above), and for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). A Mac-based browser will default to the second choice - Helvetica - because Arial is not typically found on Apple systems. Take a look at this HTML snippet:Ī Windows-based browser will display the text in Arial. You can specify typefaces in a way that matches up similar fonts on the two platforms. Luckily there is an easy fix to this problem. But it’s especially easy to fall victim to the perils of font substitution in cross-platform scenarios, because the Mac and PC come with different sets of basic system fonts. This is true even if the reader views your Web page using the same platform you used to design the page. In fact, if you specify a font that is not installed on the end user’s system, you invite font substitution, which can play havoc with your layout. But just because you ask for something doesn’t mean you’ll get it. The appearance of the text is determined both by the HTML formatting commands that you, the designer, insert into the document and by the way end users’ browsers execute those commands.įor quite some time (since HTML 3.2), designers have been able to designate the fonts that appear on a Web page. Web pages are transmitted as ASCII text, in the interest of keeping downloads efficient. Next time I’ll delve into cross-platform color issues. Still, if you work in Windows, remember that This column examines the problems surrounding font usage on the Web. This is one way (and probably the only way) that Windows-wielding designers have a slight edge over their Mac counterparts. Simply stated, they can rest assured that the majority of the Internet audience will be viewing their Web pages on a similar platform, meaning some flavor of Windows. Graphic artists who work in Windows - a minority of the professional design community - can design Web pages with a certain amount of impunity. Two key areas of difference - fonts and color representation - can compromise the appearance of your Web pages. This fact would be mere trivia if Macs and PCs displayed Web pages in exactly the same way - but they don’t. Here’s a paradox for you: Most people who design for the Web use Macs, but most people surfing the Web use PCs.
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