Alternate Image has added the popular font
Comic Sans to the font manager of our content management system. This is one of the "web safe" fonts that will be viewable across all web browsers.
Use this font with caution...Comic Sans is a popular font but it is also popular for being mis-used or even just over-used for websites and design projects in general. We found this hilarious website that will tell you when you can and cannot use Comic Sans. Check it out at
www.ComicSansCriminal.com.
Why Aren't There More Fonts to Choose From?Unlike print, websites are read by browsers and have to be made to work with the different types of browsers (Safari for Macs, Internet Explorer for PCs, Firefox, etc.) and also have to use fonts that are universal, also called "web safe fonts". There are not that many web safe fonts available, but we will keep adding more web safe fonts as they become widely used. Alternate Image works hard to make sure that all of our software uses up to date web standards practiced by web professionals. We will never use fonts that would not work on certain computers, we build all our applications to be compatible across the board. Does this mean less pretty fonts to choose from? Yes. But functionality is more important to us than being able to use pretty fonts.
What Are Web-Safe Fonts?Web safe fonts are those that can be presented in a wide range of browsers and different computer systems. Originally, font faces and styles were controlled by the browser, so web developers could not make their fonts visible to all people, it was ultimately up to the browser settings. If a font was used that a user did not have installed on their computer, then their browser would substitute a "fallback" font, like a sans-serif or monospace font. This can cause shifts in linespacing and the overall layout of your website text areas.
Advancements have allowed style sheets to include a "font downloading" function to allow fonts that are not web-safe to be downloaded on the user's computer. It is still in good web practice to use web safe fonts, so our content management system uses only web safe fonts.
Web safe fonts are:Arial/Helvectica
Times New Roman/ Times
Courier New/ Courier
Verdana
Georgia
Comic Sans
Trebuchet MS
Tahoma
Arial Black
There are a few others but the most widely used web safe fonts are listed above. Keep in mind that using web safe fonts only applies to the live text areas. Graphics that are images, like the website header, are not considered live text, it is a graphic element. These graphics do not undergo font substitution and are simply "pictures" of the text used for design. For these areas, web safe fonts are not needed. How do you know which areas are live text or graphics? Live text is an area that you can highlight and copy/paste the text from. Graphic areas can be saved as images and the text cannot be highlighted. Enjoy your new Comic Sans font but use it wisely!
