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How sure can you be that the font you specify will be present on the end user's machine? This is the latest snapshot of the Code Style Mac font survey and should give you greater confidence in selecting a font.
Subscribe to the news feed for these survey results: 
The most common font for Mac systems is the classic sans serif font Helvetica at 100% frequency. This is followed by the sans serif font Lucida Grande, monospace font Monaco and sans serif font Geneva. The classic typewriter style Courier completes the 5 most common Mac fonts at 99% frequency.
Sans serif fonts Helvetica Neue, Gill Sans and Futura are reported with greater frequency on Mac systems than Microsoft Web safe fonts Courier New and much maligned Comic Sans MS.
| Font name | Installed (%) | Sample | Image | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Helvetica | 100.00% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Lucida Grande | 99.44% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Monaco | 99.44% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Geneva | 99.15% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Courier | 98.87% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial | 97.46% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Verdana | 97.18% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Times | 96.62% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Helvetica Neue | 95.49% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Georgia | 94.93% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Trebuchet MS | 94.65% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Times New Roman | 94.37% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial Black | 94.08% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Gill Sans | 92.39% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Courier New | 91.83% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Impact | 91.27% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Futura | 90.99% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Apple Chancery | 90.70% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial Rounded MT Bold | 90.70% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Andale Mono | 90.42% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial Narrow | 90.42% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Comic Sans MS | 90.42% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Optima | 90.14% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Skia | 90.14% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Copperplate | 89.30% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Baskerville | 89.01% |
|
Sample | Image |
| American Typewriter | 88.73% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Hoefler Text | 88.73% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Zapfino | 88.45% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Didot | 88.17% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Marker Felt | 87.61% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Papyrus | 87.31% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Brush Script MT | 86.48% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Big Caslon | 85.45% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Herculanum | 84.21% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Palatino | 79.72% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Tahoma | 78.03% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Lucida Bright | 67.18% |
|
Sample | |
| Lucida Sans | 67.18% |
|
Sample | |
| Lucida Sans Typewriter | 67.18% |
|
Sample | |
These are only the top forty fonts, see the full Mac font survey results (about 100 KB) for a complete listing.
These figures are the cumulative total of font survey submissions since January 2007. Older submissions are archived to maintain a 3 year rolling sample. The table shows the average submission rate and totals for each operating system, and the the date the applet-based survey was introduced.
| Survey | Windows | Mac | Linux |
|---|---|---|---|
| Submissions per week | 11 | 2 | 2 |
| Total submissions | 2050 | 355 | 321 |
| Survey applet from | 21 April 2007 | 12 May 2007 | 21 February 2009 |
| Fonts surveyed | 281 | 117 | 102 |
Our main interest is to build reliable font stacks for screen rendering, but CSS allows us to specify a different font stack to print Web pages. The most reliable way to apply print media style sheets is to use the media attribute on the style sheet link element. The selectors you choose and font-family declarations you add to this style sheet will only apply when the page is printed.
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/styles/print.css" media="print" />
What font combinations would you choose for print? Use the font stack builder to create a print font stack and submit your ideas.
