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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 Windows font survey and should give you greater confidence in selecting a font.
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The most common reported font on the Windows platform is the system font Microsoft Sans Serif, reported in practically 100% of submissions. Mathew Carter's sans serif Verdana is in second position, followed by the classic typewriter font Courier New and Windows system interface font Tahoma. Sans serif Arial completes the top 5 most common Windows fonts at 99% frequency.
Several font families not commonly recognised as Web safe fonts are reported with more than 97% frequency on Windows systems: monospace Lucida Console, sans serif Lucida Sans Unicode, serif Palatino Linotype and sans serif Franklin Gothic Medium.
| Font name | Installed (%) | Sample | Image | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Sans Serif | 99.70% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Verdana | 99.61% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Courier New | 99.46% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Tahoma | 99.46% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial | 99.22% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Trebuchet MS | 99.22% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Comic Sans MS | 99.07% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Lucida Console | 99.07% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Impact | 98.78% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Times New Roman | 98.78% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Georgia | 98.68% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial Black | 98.54% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Lucida Sans Unicode | 98.39% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Palatino Linotype | 98.34% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Franklin Gothic Medium | 97.87% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Sylfaen | 95.54% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial Narrow | 88.73% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Century Gothic | 87.95% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Vrinda | 86.58% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Kartika | 86.38% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Garamond | 86.34% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Book Antiqua | 86.00% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Bookman Old Style | 85.71% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Monotype Corsiva | 82.34% |
|
Sample | Image |
| MS Reference Sans Serif | 70.68% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Haettenschweiler | 67.61% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Arial Unicode MS | 62.93% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Papyrus | 62.89% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Bradley Hand ITC | 62.73% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Tempus Sans ITC | 62.13% |
|
Sample | Image |
| French Script MT | 62.08% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Copperplate Gothic Light | 60.71% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Kristen ITC | 60.66% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Mistral | 60.66% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Copperplate Gothic Bold | 60.59% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Franklin Gothic Book | 60.46% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Perpetua | 60.46% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Curlz MT | 60.10% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Edwardian Script ITC | 60.05% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Felix Titling | 60.05% |
|
Sample | Image |
These are only the top forty fonts, see the full Windows 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.
