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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.

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The most common Mac fonts

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.

The new Web safe fonts

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:

Most common fonts on Mac systems to 14 August 2010
Font name Installed (%) Sample Image
Helvetica 100.00% 100.00% Sample Image
Lucida Grande 100.00% 100.00% Sample Image
Geneva 99.47% 99.47% Sample Image
Monaco 99.47% 99.47% Sample Image
Courier 98.94% 98.94% Sample Image
Times 98.15% 98.15% Sample Image
Arial 97.63% 97.63% Sample Image
Verdana 97.63% 97.63% Sample Image
Helvetica Neue 95.78% 95.78% Sample Image
Georgia 95.51% 95.51% Sample Image
Times New Roman 94.99% 94.99% Sample Image
Trebuchet MS 94.72% 94.72% Sample Image
Arial Black 94.20% 94.20% Sample Image
Gill Sans 93.14% 93.14% Sample Image
Courier New 92.61% 92.61% Sample Image
Futura 92.08% 92.08% Sample Image
Impact 91.82% 91.82% Sample Image
Arial Rounded MT Bold 91.29% 91.29% Sample Image
Comic Sans MS 91.29% 91.29% Sample Image
Andale Mono 91.03% 91.03% Sample Image
Apple Chancery 91.03% 91.03% Sample Image
Skia 91.03% 91.03% Sample Image
Arial Narrow 90.50% 90.50% Sample Image
Optima 90.24% 90.24% Sample Image
Baskerville 89.97% 89.97% Sample Image
Copperplate 89.97% 89.97% Sample Image
American Typewriter 89.71% 89.71% Sample Image
Didot 89.45% 89.45% Sample Image
Hoefler Text 89.45% 89.45% Sample Image
Papyrus 88.92% 88.92% Sample Image
Zapfino 88.92% 88.92% Sample Image
Big Caslon 88.13% 88.13% Sample Image
Marker Felt 88.13% 88.13% Sample Image
Brush Script MT 86.81% 86.81% Sample Image
Herculanum 86.81% 86.81% Sample Image
Tahoma 81.53% 81.53% Sample Image
Palatino 79.68% 79.68% Sample Image
Lucida Bright 77.04% 77.04% Sample  
Lucida Sans 77.04% 77.04% Sample  
Lucida Sans Typewriter 77.04% 77.04% Sample  
Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN 75.00% 75.00% Sample  
Hiragino Mincho ProN 75.00% 75.00% Sample  
Hiragino Kaku Gothic StdN 69.64% 69.64% Sample  
Hiragino Maru Gothic ProN 69.64% 69.64% Sample  
Kailasa 60.71% 60.71% Sample  
Kokonor 60.71% 60.71% Sample  
Casual 50.56% 50.56% Sample  
Capitals 44.59% 44.59% Sample Image
Century Gothic 40.11% 40.11% Sample Image
Heiti SC 39.29% 39.29% Sample  
Heiti TC 39.29% 39.29% Sample  
Menlo 39.29% 39.29% Sample  
Chalkduster 35.71% 35.71% Sample  
GungSeo 35.71% 35.71% Sample  
Adobe Fangsong Std 33.93% 33.93% Sample  
Adobe Heiti Std 33.93% 33.93% Sample  
Adobe Kaiti Std 33.93% 33.93% Sample  
Adobe Ming Std 33.93% 33.93% Sample  
Adobe Myungjo Std 33.93% 33.93% Sample  
Adobe Song Std 33.93% 33.93% Sample  
Lucida Handwriting 32.98% 32.98% Sample Image
Copperplate Gothic Bold 32.45% 32.45% Sample Image
Garamond 29.55% 29.55% Sample  
Century Schoolbook 29.02% 29.02% Sample  
Bookman Old Style 28.76% 28.76% Sample  
Book Antiqua 27.70% 27.70% Sample  
Monotype Corsiva 26.91% 26.91% Sample  
Goudy Old Style 26.12% 26.12% Sample  
Haettenschweiler 25.86% 25.86% Sample  
Britannic Bold 25.33% 25.33% Sample  
Footlight MT Light 25.33% 25.33% Sample  
Playbill 25.07% 25.07% Sample  
Abadi MT Condensed Light 24.80% 24.80% Sample  
Braggadocio 24.80% 24.80% Sample  
Calisto MT 24.80% 24.80% Sample  
Colonna MT 24.80% 24.80% Sample  
Desdemona 24.54% 24.54% Sample  
Matura MT Script Capitals 24.54% 24.54% Sample  
News Gothic MT 24.54% 24.54% Sample  
Wide Latin 24.01% 24.01% Sample  
Kino MT 23.48% 23.48% Sample  
Calibri 17.15% 17.15% Sample  
Corbel 15.30% 15.30% Sample  
Consolas 15.04% 15.04% Sample  
Cambria 14.78% 14.78% Sample  
Bitstream Vera Sans Mono 13.98% 13.98% Sample  
Candara 13.98% 13.98% Sample  
Constantia 13.98% 13.98% Sample  
Chicago 13.72% 13.72% Sample Image
Charcoal 13.46% 13.46% Sample Image
Bitstream Vera Serif 12.93% 12.93% Sample  
Bitstream Vera Sans 12.66% 12.66% Sample  
Univers 12.66% 12.66% Sample  
Textile 11.87% 11.87% Sample Image
Gadget 11.61% 11.61% Sample Image
New York 11.08% 11.08% Sample Image
Sand 11.08% 11.08% Sample Image
Techno 11.08% 11.08% Sample Image
Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk BE 7.78% 7.78% Sample  
TradeGothic 6.67% 6.67% Sample  
Adobe Garamond 6.11% 6.11% Sample  
Avenir 6.11% 6.11% Sample  
Bembo 5.56% 5.56% Sample  
ITC Franklin Gothic 5.56% 5.56% Sample  
Interstate 5.00% 5.00% Sample  
Bernhard Modern Std 3.89% 3.89% Sample  
Caflisch Script Pro 3.89% 3.89% Sample  
HelveticaNeue 3.89% 3.89% Sample  
RotisSemiSans 3.89% 3.89% Sample  
ITC Century 3.33% 3.33% Sample  
New Century Schoolbook 2.90% 2.90% Sample  
Apple Casual 2.78% 2.78% Sample  
Minion Std 2.78% 2.78% Sample  
Bookman 2.37% 2.37% Sample Image
Kaufmann 2.22% 2.22% Sample  
Porcelain 2.22% 2.22% Sample  
Shelley 2.22% 2.22% Sample  
Avant Garde 1.85% 1.85% Sample  
Minion Web 1.85% 1.85% Sample  
Belwe 1.67% 1.67% Sample  
Algerian 1.06% 1.06% Sample  
Caslon 1.06% 1.06% Sample  
Zapf Chancery 1.06% 1.06% Sample Image
Utopia 0.79% 0.79% Sample  
Monotype.com 0.53% 0.53% Sample  
URW Antiqua T 0.53% 0.53% Sample  
Helvetica Narrow 0.26% 0.26% Sample  
URW Grotesk T 0.26% 0.26% Sample  

Font survey statistics

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

Font stacks for print style sheets

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.

CSS font family resources

Web font survey and sampler

Contribute to the survey and discover the new Web safe fonts.

Common fonts by generic font family

Set an unconventional font style and stack fallback fonts with confidence.

Web font foundations

Font jargon: CSS font family glossary

Find fonts: Anchor Points: Font foundries & sources

Get the sampler font code: Sampler.css

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