12

I've noticed that the fonts at this site are different form the font at other S.E sites (which is Arial, I think). So I wanted to know what fonts are used here?

3
  • 2
    I'm always impressed by how many "techie gurus" we have here on ELU, so I'll be interested to see if we get a definitive answer to this one. My understanding is the backroom boys at SO are too good to specify a particular font that might not be installed (or even implementable) on the target machine. Anyway, for what it's worth, looking at the "source code" for this page, I see font-family:Georgia,"Times New Roman",Times, which I assume means that's the (preferential) order of fonts the page will attempt to use if available. I don't see how webpages can "fix" what font they use. Jul 11, 2012 at 20:56
  • @FF: You’re right that font-family is a prioritised list, and that a Web author can only “guide” a browser to create the desired effect. The gory details are here, if you’re interested. Jul 11, 2012 at 21:30
  • 2
    I think it behoves a site like this to have a formal colophon. Jul 21, 2012 at 17:33

4 Answers 4

12

The CSS for the site contains the following:

body { font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",Times,serif; }

So first preference for typeface is Georgia, which has been one of Microsoft’s Core Fonts for the Web since 1996.

2
  • I see that in a page on writers.se the corresponding entry says font-family: Arial,Helvetic,Sans-Serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: center; padding-top: 9px; background-color: #000; color: #EFF; opacity: 0.9; filter: alpha(opacity=90); top: 30px; height: 30px; position: relative;. Maybe OP doesn't find the effect so impressive, but it does rather suggest a more complex set of choices were made for that site. Jul 12, 2012 at 0:05
  • 2
    Writers.SE is in beta, and all the betas look alike. Jul 15, 2012 at 14:37
9

For what it's worth, our almighty ampersand is Baskerville Italic.

1
3

a b c d e f g h i j k l m
n o p q u r s t u v w x y z

I believe the font is Georgia:

enter image description here

5
  • Yes you are right: the font is Georgia. It is a serif font largely used in internet in reason of its high legibility. However, I think that the Apple computers does not have the same font.
    – user19148
    Jul 11, 2012 at 20:55
  • 1
    @Carlo: My Mac has Georgia installed.
    – J.R.
    Jul 12, 2012 at 2:11
  • I'm on a Mac, I have Georgia as well.
    – user11550
    Jul 12, 2012 at 4:04
  • 1
    So probably only a real guru knows if Georgia comes with MacOS, or we Mac users acquired it elsewhere at some time over the years.
    – GEdgar
    Jul 14, 2012 at 13:21
  • Good point. In fact, the reason I opted to include a screen shot instead of a CSS excerpt is that the html code might request Georgia, but, if that font isn't installed, another font might be displayed. No way to know for sure what the O.P. is seeing.
    – J.R.
    Jul 17, 2012 at 21:44
1

Web developers use right-click/Inspect Element on a layout component (such as paragraphs in a question) to see the CSS selectors for the same (or its parent(s)). If you don't see such a menu alternative, there are plug-ins such as Firebug for Firefox that you can install.

Here, using Inspect Element reveals that a paragraph in a question currently uses 100% of 15px = 15px (size in pixels) font size of the primary font Georgia, second choice "Times New Roman", third choice generic Times, fourth choice any serif font. The text color is '#393318' which is hexadecimal notation for a dark gray-yellow color (click the brush color in Photoshop and feed in the number to check). The line-height is 20px, which means 5px line spacing. Between each paragraph there is a bottom margin of 1 em unit, which is a relative unit, currently rendered in browsers as the height of the font of the parent element to the paragraph, in this case, 15px.

To check if your Mac has Georgia, open a text editor and press Command-T.

On a side note, Georgia is the better serif font until we get ClearFace in browsers. I think it's pretty darn good :)

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .