How to Use Fonts on Web Pages

by Willa Dunn, Demand Media

Use a font that enhances your Web page content.

The markup language HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the underlying code for Web pages. Use HTML to control the fonts in your Web pages, including characteristics such as face, size and color. Fonts are rendered according to those available on the Web visitor's computer. For this reason, it is a good idea to list a series of font choices in the HTML: <font face="verdana, helvetica, arial">my paragraph</font>, for example. In this example, Verdana will be rendered if it is available; if it is not, then Helvetica and so on. Although the previous inline method will work, take a look at CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), the preferred method for using fonts on your Web pages.

Step 1

Open your Web page using a text or HTML editor. Locate the "" tag.

Step 2

Type the following text after the "" tag and before the "" tag.

Step 3

Modify the paragraph that you want to apply this style to in the following manner:

paragraph using the paraStyle style

Step 4

View your page in a browser to test the font change.

Tips

For efficient use of site-wide fonts, use a separate style sheet document containing your font styles and include it into each page using a reference such as . Put the reference line within the start and end "" tags of your pages.
To ensure that a font will appear on all visitors' pages, such as in a heading, make the heading into an image.

References

W3C: Fonts

Resources

Angelfire: List of Fonts

About the Author

Willa Dunn has been writing since 1970. She has written website content, as well as technical documentation, poetry and fiction. She specializes in technology-related articles. Dunn attended Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois, studying photography and computer science.