Frustrating to many web designers is the limited availability of font choices. There are only a handful of fonts supported by all web browsers, unlike the plethora of fonts available for designs such as business card or brochure printing. Happily, the Internet is changing. Beginning in 2009, Safari, Opera, and Firefox have allowed designers to embed fonts, including TrueType (ttf) and OpenType (otf) fonts. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is slower to change, unfortunately, and it may be 3 to 5 years before all web browsers can come up with a way to embed fonts across the board.

 

Copyright Issues Solved
While it is pretty easy to embed fonts with Safari, Opera, and Firefox, copyright laws are still an issue. To avoid licensing issues, you could rent fonts from a company such as Typekit. This company rent fonts on a monthly or yearly basis in compliance with copyright laws. Your other option is to stick to open source fonts.
 
Fonts that All Browsers Have
Helvetica was created half a century ago, and is widely used both by printing companies and online. It is a sans-serif font that was created by Swiss designers at Linotype.

Arial is another sans-serif font that is widely used. Some people say that Arial is a Helvetica knockoff, but the two fonts are not all that similar.

Verdana was created specifically for the Internet. Microsoft commissioned this font, requiring that it be easy to read on a computer screen at small sizes. It is also a sans-serif font.

Trebuchet was also commissioned by Microsoft for the Internet. It is a sans-serif font that works better as a header than as body text.

Lucinda Grande is a sans-serif font used in the Mac operating systems. It’s cousin, Lucinda Sans Unicode looks similar and is the Windows version. It has a more hand-written, organic feel than other sans-serif fonts. (more…)