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Wildwood Interactive
3355 Bee Caves Road
Suite 510
Austin, TX 78746

512.732.9916
877.732.9916-toll-free
512.732.9918-fax

Common Fonts

Credit for this information goes 100% to Alberto Martinez Perez. He can be found at: http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/

Windows Fonts / Mac Fonts / Font Family
Normal style Bold style
Arial, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif Arial, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
Arial Black, Arial Black, Gadget, sans-serif Arial Black, Arial Black, Gadget, sans-serif
Book Antiqua (98), Palatino (2000/XP), Palatino5, serif Book Antiqua (98), Palatino (2000/XP), Palatino5, serif
Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans MS4, cursive Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans MS4, cursive
Courier New, Courier New, Courier5, monospace Courier New, Courier New, Courier5, monospace
Georgia1, Georgia, serif Georgia1, Georgia, serif
Impact, Impact4, Charcoal5, sans-serif Impact, Impact4, Charcoal5, sans-serif
Lucida Console, Monaco4, monospace Lucida Console, Monaco4, monospace
Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif
Times New Roman, Times, serif Times New Roman, Times, serif
Trebuchet MS1, Helvetica, sans-serif Trebuchet MS1, Helvetica, sans-serif
Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif
Symbol, Symbol (Symbol2, Symbol2) Symbol, Symbol (Symbol2, Symbol2)
Webdings, Webdings (Webdings2, Webdings2) Webdings, Webdings (Webdings2, Webdings2)
Wingdings, Zapf Dingbats (Wingdings2, Zapf Dingbats2) Wingdings, Zapf Dingbats (Wingdings2, Zapf Dingbats2)
MS Sans Serif3, Geneva, sans-serif MS Sans Serif3, Geneva, sans-serif
MS Serif3, New York5, sans-serif MS Serif3, New York5, sans-serif

1 Georgia and Trebuchet MS are bundled with Windows 2000/XP and they are also included in the IE font pack (and bundled with other MS applications), so they are quite common in Windows 98 systems.

2 Symbolic fonts are only displayed in Internet Explorer, in other browsers a font substitute is used instead (although the Symbol font does work in Opera and the Webdings works in Safari).

3 These fonts are not TrueType fonts but bitmap fonts, so they won't look well when using some font sizes (they are designed for 8, 10, 12, 14, 18 and 24 point sizes at 96 DPI).

4 These fonts work in Safari but only when using the normal font style, and not with bold or italic styles. Comic Sans MS works in bold but not in italic. Other Mac browsers seems to emulate properly the styles not provided by the font (thanks to Christian Fecteau for the tip).

5 These fonts are present in Mac OS X only if Classic is installed.

How the fonts look in different systems and browsers

Please note: these will take you off Wildwood's website. Thanks to Alberto Martinez Perez for this great information!

Note that while the ClearType smoothing is applied always, the basic font smoothing of Windows 98/2000/XP is applied only to certain font sizes. That sizes can be specified by the font designer, but usually they are in the range of 0-6 and 14+ points (pt).


The Mac font list was obtained from the Browser Safe Fonts PDF of webbedEnvironments and from the List of fonts in Mac OS X of the Wikipedia.