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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 fonts on Mac systems are the classic sans serif font Helvetica and Lucida Grande at 100% frequency. The sans serif font Geneva and monospace font Monaco are joint second most common fonts on Mac OS. These are followed by the classic typewriter font Courier to complete the 5 most common Mac fonts at 99% frequency.
Several Mac font families are reported with similar frequency to standard Web safe fonts Courier New and much-maligned Comic Sans MS, at more than 90% frequency:
| Font name | Installed (%) | Sample | Image | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Helvetica | 100.00% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Lucida Grande | 100.00% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Geneva | 99.47% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Monaco | 99.47% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Courier | 98.94% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Times | 98.15% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial | 97.63% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Verdana | 97.63% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Helvetica Neue | 95.78% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Georgia | 95.51% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Times New Roman | 94.99% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Trebuchet MS | 94.72% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial Black | 94.20% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Gill Sans | 93.14% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Courier New | 92.61% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Futura | 92.08% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Impact | 91.82% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial Rounded MT Bold | 91.29% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Comic Sans MS | 91.29% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Andale Mono | 91.03% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Apple Chancery | 91.03% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Skia | 91.03% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial Narrow | 90.50% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Optima | 90.24% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Baskerville | 89.97% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Copperplate | 89.97% |
|
Sample | Image |
| American Typewriter | 89.71% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Didot | 89.45% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Hoefler Text | 89.45% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Papyrus | 88.92% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Zapfino | 88.92% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Big Caslon | 88.13% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Marker Felt | 88.13% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Brush Script MT | 86.81% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Herculanum | 86.81% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Tahoma | 81.53% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Palatino | 79.68% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Lucida Bright | 77.04% |
|
Sample | |
| Lucida Sans | 77.04% |
|
Sample | |
| Lucida Sans Typewriter | 77.04% |
|
Sample | |
| Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN | 75.00% |
|
Sample | |
| Hiragino Mincho ProN | 75.00% |
|
Sample | |
| Hiragino Kaku Gothic StdN | 69.64% |
|
Sample | |
| Hiragino Maru Gothic ProN | 69.64% |
|
Sample | |
| Kailasa | 60.71% |
|
Sample | |
| Kokonor | 60.71% |
|
Sample | |
| Casual | 50.56% |
|
Sample | |
| Capitals | 44.59% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Century Gothic | 40.11% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Heiti SC | 39.29% |
|
Sample | |
| Heiti TC | 39.29% |
|
Sample | |
| Menlo | 39.29% |
|
Sample | |
| Chalkduster | 35.71% |
|
Sample | |
| GungSeo | 35.71% |
|
Sample | |
| Adobe Fangsong Std | 33.93% |
|
Sample | |
| Adobe Heiti Std | 33.93% |
|
Sample | |
| Adobe Kaiti Std | 33.93% |
|
Sample | |
| Adobe Ming Std | 33.93% |
|
Sample | |
| Adobe Myungjo Std | 33.93% |
|
Sample | |
| Adobe Song Std | 33.93% |
|
Sample | |
| Lucida Handwriting | 32.98% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Copperplate Gothic Bold | 32.45% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Garamond | 29.55% |
|
Sample | |
| Century Schoolbook | 29.02% |
|
Sample | |
| Bookman Old Style | 28.76% |
|
Sample | |
| Book Antiqua | 27.70% |
|
Sample | |
| Monotype Corsiva | 26.91% |
|
Sample | |
| Goudy Old Style | 26.12% |
|
Sample | |
| Haettenschweiler | 25.86% |
|
Sample | |
| Britannic Bold | 25.33% |
|
Sample | |
| Footlight MT Light | 25.33% |
|
Sample | |
| Playbill | 25.07% |
|
Sample | |
| Abadi MT Condensed Light | 24.80% |
|
Sample | |
| Braggadocio | 24.80% |
|
Sample | |
| Calisto MT | 24.80% |
|
Sample | |
| Colonna MT | 24.80% |
|
Sample | |
| Desdemona | 24.54% |
|
Sample | |
| Matura MT Script Capitals | 24.54% |
|
Sample | |
| News Gothic MT | 24.54% |
|
Sample | |
| Wide Latin | 24.01% |
|
Sample | |
| Kino MT | 23.48% |
|
Sample | |
| Calibri | 17.15% |
|
Sample | |
| Corbel | 15.30% |
|
Sample | |
| Consolas | 15.04% |
|
Sample | |
| Cambria | 14.78% |
|
Sample | |
| Bitstream Vera Sans Mono | 13.98% |
|
Sample | |
| Candara | 13.98% |
|
Sample | |
| Constantia | 13.98% |
|
Sample | |
| Chicago | 13.72% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Charcoal | 13.46% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Bitstream Vera Serif | 12.93% |
|
Sample | |
| Bitstream Vera Sans | 12.66% |
|
Sample | |
| Univers | 12.66% |
|
Sample | |
| Textile | 11.87% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Gadget | 11.61% |
|
Sample | Image |
| New York | 11.08% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Sand | 11.08% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Techno | 11.08% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk BE | 7.78% |
|
Sample | |
| TradeGothic | 6.67% |
|
Sample | |
| Adobe Garamond | 6.11% |
|
Sample | |
| Avenir | 6.11% |
|
Sample | |
| Bembo | 5.56% |
|
Sample | |
| ITC Franklin Gothic | 5.56% |
|
Sample | |
| Interstate | 5.00% |
|
Sample | |
| Bernhard Modern Std | 3.89% |
|
Sample | |
| Caflisch Script Pro | 3.89% |
|
Sample | |
| HelveticaNeue | 3.89% |
|
Sample | |
| RotisSemiSans | 3.89% |
|
Sample | |
| ITC Century | 3.33% |
|
Sample | |
| New Century Schoolbook | 2.90% |
|
Sample | |
| Apple Casual | 2.78% |
|
Sample | |
| Minion Std | 2.78% |
|
Sample | |
| Bookman | 2.37% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Kaufmann | 2.22% |
|
Sample | |
| Porcelain | 2.22% |
|
Sample | |
| Shelley | 2.22% |
|
Sample | |
| Avant Garde | 1.85% |
|
Sample | |
| Minion Web | 1.85% |
|
Sample | |
| Belwe | 1.67% |
|
Sample | |
| Algerian | 1.06% |
|
Sample | |
| Caslon | 1.06% |
|
Sample | |
| Zapf Chancery | 1.06% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Utopia | 0.79% |
|
Sample | |
| Monotype.com | 0.53% |
|
Sample | |
| URW Antiqua T | 0.53% |
|
Sample | |
| Helvetica Narrow | 0.26% |
|
Sample | |
| URW Grotesk T | 0.26% |
|
Sample | |
These figures are the cumulative total of font survey submissions since April 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 | 10 | 2 | 2 |
| Submission sample | 2063 | 379 | 329 |
| Survey applet from | 21 April 2007 | 12 May 2007 | 21 February 2009 |
| Fonts surveyed | 292 | 133 | 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.
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Font jargon: CSS font family glossary
Find fonts: Anchor Points: Font foundries & sources
Get the sampler font code: Sampler.css
