| Have you seen that awful archaic
font they're using on dozens of sites these days? They're almost totally
unreadable! Two good hints from Worldstart.
Sure there are over a million amateur web page
makers for every pro designer, but I think the reason so many web sites
seem to be using an ugly font has more to do with your browser than the
design skills of the person who made the site.
If your browser's default font is some ugly,
unreadable font, then any website that does not have a specified font will
come use that one.
Now, how to fix this...
The interface for Internet Explorer and AOL
is the same, but you get there in different ways. With IE, go to Tools
/ Internet Options to open the control panel. With AOL, go to Settings
/ Preferences, then under "Organization" click "Internet Properties".
Down at the bottom of the "General" page you
will see a button marked "Fonts"—clicking it opens a window where you can
select the font you want to have as a default.
For readability, keep it simple: Arial
or Times New Roman. For plain text, you can do the same, or use Courier
New for that typewriter look.
Now, with Netscape Navigator, go to Edit /
Preferences, then under the "Appearance" category select "Fonts".
From the "Fonts for" drop-down list, choose
a character set. For instance, any of you who browse websites in Western
languages (like English), set default fonts for the "Western" character
set.
Next, select whether proportional text should
be Serif (like Times Roman) or Sans-serif (like Arial). Then specify the
font size you want for proportional text—normal size is 12 pt., but you
can go larger or smaller if you want. You can also choose fonts for Serif,
Sans-Serif, Cursive, Fantasy, and Monospace but I don't think it will make
much of a difference on most sites.
For Firefox go to Tools/Options then under
"General" click the "Fonts & Colors" button.
From the "Fonts for" drop-down list, choose
a character set. For instance, any of you who browse websites in Western
languages (like English), set default fonts for the "Western" character
set.
Next, select whether proportional text should
be Serif (like Times Roman) or Sans-serif (like Arial). Then specify the
font size you want for proportional text—normal size is 12 pt., but you
can go larger or smaller if you want. You can also choose fonts for Serif,
Sans-Serif, Cursive, Fantasy, and Monospace but I don't think it will make
much of a difference on most sites.
Who knew you had so much control over web
site appearance?
Printing Font Samples
Most computers come pre-installed with a bounty
of printer fonts, and WinXP only added to them. You can also download hundreds
more, or even make your own. Knowing how they will all look when they print
can be tough, but can also be an important aspect!
Luckily, there's an easy way to print samples
of the fonts on your computer. Go to Start Menu, Settings, Control Panel
and double-click the "Fonts" folder.
Now hold down the CTRL key and select the
fonts you want to see samples for by clicking them. (If you REALLY want
to see them all, press CTRL+A to highlight everything.)
Next, go to File and choose "Print". This will
bring up a print dialog box for each font selected. NOTE: You'll have to
click Print (or OK in older versions of Windows) in the print dialog box
for each font you selected, so if you have a lot of 'em, get comfy. If
you just want a sample page of one font, then right click and choose Print.
Your printer will go to work printing complete sample pages for each font. |