Re: Serif fonts

While it's interesting to see the results of a survey, I doubt that 
these results are valid. For instance, do you really think that 67% 
of Internet users have Garamond installed?

Anabella didn't describe her survey methodology, much less provide 
statistical analysis. She may have surveyed a select, 
non-representative group. Also, users with an interest in fonts may 
have been more likely to respond, and those individuals may be more 
likely to have less common fonts installed in their systems.

She says she surveyed for fonts installed on her computer. I notice 
that the survey doesn't even include Helvetica, so apparently she's 
using a PC, and fonts common to the Mac aren't included.

In the absence of reliable survey data, we would be better off 
considering the fonts that are included with the main operating 
systems (e.g., Windows and Mac OS), and possibly adding fonts 
included with widely used browsers, etc.. Then, as others have 
suggested, by providing a list of alternatives plus the generic 
category as a fallback, the font list should work in most situations.


Jeff




>One thing to consider, as some have already mentioned, is that you have to
>consider what fonts your reader has on their machine. I have a list from
>Annabella's HTML help (http://www.geocities.com/annabella.geo) that contians
>the results of a survey. The numbers are for the percentage of the users who
>had a certain font available.
>
>The top ten were:
>1. Times New Roman - 99%
>2. Arial - 99%
>3. MS Sans Serif - 88%
>4. Courier - 82%
>5. Impact - 78%
>6. Wingdings - 76%
>7. Verdana - 75%
>8. Comic Sans MS - 73%
>9. Arial Black - 72 %
>10. Garmond - 67%
>
>Georgia is down at #13 with 58%. I'm not suggesting one font over another,
>just that we need to consider the lowest comon denominator, which is "what
>to they have." Thats why the W3C strongly suggests always including a
>generic font with your declerations.
>Sorry I don't have the full path to the list, I printed out an EZ print pop
>page and it's not listed on it. You should be able to find the rest of the
>list from the addy above.
>
>hth,
>Jim Lynch
>http://www.optp.org
>http://www.geocities.com/actorjiml
>

-- 

HWG hwg-style mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA