A very nice discussion of the history of typefaces is taken fromhttp://www.xnet.se/xpo/typetalk/ and archived here.
Another font comparison pageis here,archived here. The same site hasmore excellentinformation about fonts here,archived here.
Another document cross-linking fonts is here.
The fonts that are most safe to use are:
- Arial / Helvetica
- Times New Roman / Times
- Courier New / Courier
Other options that usually work cross-platform are:
- Palatino
- Garamond
- Bookman
- Avant Garde
Fonts that work on Windows and MacOS but not Unix+X are:
- Verdana
- Georgia
- Comic Sans MS
- Trebuchet MS
- Arial Black
- Impact
Common sans-serif fonts
Helvetica is the granddaddy here, but Arial is more common onmodern OS's.
Helvetica
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Helvetica is a sans-serif font. It is a good choice for shorttext, perhaps a paragraph or two in length. Unix and Macintoshcomputers have had always had Helvetica, and it is a native fonton PostScript printers.
Arial
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Arial is near-copy of Helvetica, updated slightly. Windows usesArial in place of Helvetica.
Common serif fonts
Times is the grand-daddy of serif fonts, but Times New Roman ismore common on recent OS's.
Times
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Times (also called TimesRoman) is the traditional seriffont. It is available on Macintosh and Unix computers, and is acore PostScript font. Times was designed for use as newspapercolumn text. It has a small size, compared to most other fonts.
Times New Roman
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Times New Roman is Microsoft's version of Times. It is availableon Windows computers, and most Macintosh computers.
Common monospace fonts
Designed to mimic typewritten output, these fonts are often usedwhen writing code. Courier is the grand-daddy, while most recentOS's have Courier New.
Courier
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Courier is the traditional monospace font. It is available onMacintosh and Unix computers, and is a core PostScript font.
Courier New
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Courier New is Microsoft's version of Courier. Most Windows andMacintosh computers will have Courier New.
Less-common sans-serif fonts
Verdana is popular, but still new to the scene. Tahoma's styleis half-way between Verdana and Arial. Comic Sans MS is oftenliked for its informal feel. Avante Garde is big and spacious.Impact and Arial Black are both designed for titles andheadings. All of the fonts in this section suffer from theproblem that most Unix machines don't have the fonts.
Verdana
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
From around 2000 until mid-2002, Microsoft distributed a set ofWeb-optimized fonts, for free use. They have stopped allowingdownloads, but still ship the fonts with Windows. Verdana is asans-serif replacement. Its lowercase letters are very large,compared to the overall size of the font, which makes text easyto read on the web.
Unfortunately, the stretching of Verdana lowercase letters hastwo drawbacks. One issue is that the stretched letters don'tlook quite right when printed—compare them to Arial, forexample. The other problem is that some people don't have theVerdana font, and these people may have trouble reading a webpage that uses Verdana. The problem is that while 9ptVerdana is readable, 9pt Arial is not readable, and aperson who doesn't have Verdana will probably have their webbrowser choose Arial as the substitute font.
Tahoma
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Tahoma is another of Microsoft's web fonts. It is not as widelyavailable as Verdana or Arial are.
Arial Black
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Arial Black is a version of Arial designed for headlines.
Comic Sans MS
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Comic Sans MS is a sans-serif font with a soft, rounded style.
Impact
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Impact is a Microsoft Web font, designed for headlines.
Avant Garde
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Avant Garde or Century Gothic. HP Printers call this AvantGarde Gothic.
Less-common serif fonts
Georgia is a web-optimized serif font, but is still a newcomer.Palatino is as old and established as Times is, butlooks terrible on recent Unixsystems. Century Schoolbook, Garamond, and Bookman seem to beavailable on Unix systems, but I am not sure how widespread theyare on Windows/Mac systems.
Georgia
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Georgia is a Microsoft Web font. It has serifs but also haslarge lowercase letters, similar to Verdana. It is a nicelyreadable screen font, but has the same problems that Verdanadoes: it looks bad when printed, and paged designed for Georgiawill look bad if rendered in Times, because of the difference inletter size.
Palatino
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Palatino is a less-commonly used serif font. It is available onMacintosh and Unix computers, and is a core PostScript font. Itis available on Windows computers under alternate font names.
Palatino was originally designed as a display font—forexample, to be used in lettering on signs. Nevertheless, itis commonly used to set body text.
Bookman
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Bookman, also called Bookman Old Style.Not shipped with WinXP. Shipped with MS Office 2000.
Garamond
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Garamond. There are a lot of variants of this font.Not shipped with WinXP.
Century Schoolbook
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Century Schoolbook is a core postscript font. You cannot rely onits being present on Windows computers.Not shipped with WinXP.
Less-common monospace fonts
Andale Mono is similar to Verdana and Georgia; it is a new font,not widespread, and not available on Unix or on some Windows computers.
Andale Mono
ABCDE abcde 012345 &*!,.
Andale Mono is yet another Microsoft's monospace typeface. Ithas some resemblance to Monaco.Not shipped with WinXP.
