Html - CSS: Is Helvetica The Default 'sans-serif' Font On Mac And Arial ...

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Learn more about Labs CSS: Is Helvetica the default 'sans-serif' font on Mac and Arial the default sans-serif font on Windows? Ask Question Asked 15 years, 2 months ago Modified 11 years, 7 months ago Viewed 30k times 18

I have a lot of CSS that does the following:

font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;

It my understanding that Helvetica is the default sans-serif font on Mac and Arial is the default sans-serif font on Windows ... if that's the case, couldn't I just change the above code to be:

font-family: sans-serif;

Yes, no?

• html
• css

Share Improve this question Follow asked Oct 27, 2009 at 14:12 TeddiTeddi 25311 gold badge33 silver badges66 bronze badges Add a comment |

6 Answers 6

Sorted by: Reset to default Highest score (default) Trending (recent votes count more) Date modified (newest first) Date created (oldest first) 21

The default font really depends on the browser. For example, in Firefox on Mac, I have Lucida Grande as the default sans-serif font. I don't think I changed it, but I'm not entirely sure. You can't really depend on the defaults being specific fonts, as users can change them in the preferences. If you want a specific font, specify it.

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Oct 27, 2009 at 14:14 Samir TalwarSamir Talwar 14.3k33 gold badges4444 silver badges6565 bronze badges Add a comment | 14

Helvetica on Windows XP looks horrible due to its poor rendering. Luckily, only a few people have Helvetica installed on Windows XP (because if they care about Helvetica, they’ll probably be using a Mac).

This is safer:

"Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif;

That way, pretty much only Mac OS X will pickup Helvetica Neue (standard on OS X) and Windows can ignore it and move straight into Arial.

Share Improve this answer Follow edited Jan 2, 2012 at 1:41 Ry-♦ 225k5656 gold badges488488 silver badges497497 bronze badges answered Jan 14, 2011 at 15:02 Thomas EdwardsThomas Edwards 14111 silver badge22 bronze badges 1

• 1 +1 Helvetica on Windows XP does indeed look horrible! This is when font smoothing is set to "Standard" (the default setting). Thanks for the "Helvetica Neue" tip. – MrWhite Commented Aug 24, 2012 at 15:12

Add a comment | 3

With fonts, you want to be as specific as possible to prevent layout issues. Your page may look perfect on a machine with Arial as the default sans-serif font, but if someone has a very different font as their default, it can affect spacing of elements (if you use relative measures). Plus it makes any designer on the project angry when they see the wrong font, and you don't want that.

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Oct 27, 2009 at 14:19 TomTom 22.8k55 gold badges6666 silver badges9696 bronze badges Add a comment | 2

What do you want to happen on platforms that have

• Helvetica or Arial installed and
• a default sans-serif font that is neither of those?

Or asked differently: do you always prefer Helvetica or Arial over the default, if they are installed? If you prefer the default sans-serif font in all cases, why mention those two at all?

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Oct 27, 2009 at 14:23 Joachim SauerJoachim Sauer 308k5959 gold badges565565 silver badges620620 bronze badges 2

• 1 I prefer Helvetica if available, if not Helvetica, than Arial, last resort if neither Helvetica or Arial is available, display using whatever is the default sans-serif typeface. – Teddi Commented Oct 27, 2009 at 14:48
• 2 @Teddi: in that case, what does the default font matter? If you want Helvetica if available, even if it's not the default then your original CSS is the correct one. – Joachim Sauer Commented Oct 27, 2009 at 14:57

Add a comment | 1

Helvetica is sometimes the default sans on Mac, but to be honest it's not a great screen font.

Geneva, Lucida Sans, and Trebuchet MS are good alternatives.

Share Improve this answer Follow answered May 11, 2011 at 15:37 Foo BarFoo Bar 33833 silver badges2020 bronze badges Add a comment | 0

You can be pretty certain that Helvetica is installed on machines running Mac OS X, because that font is used in a number of official applications designed by Apple. Arial is also available on any machine, provided that the user hasn't deleted the font file.

But as Tom points out, it's better to be as specific as possible when defining font styles. When I want a sans-serif family displayed I usually have the following in my stylesheets:

Helvetica, Geneva, Arial, sans-serif; Share Improve this answer Follow answered Oct 29, 2009 at 11:09 menschmensch 4,41133 gold badges3030 silver badges4949 bronze badges 1

• This doesn't make sense. Geneva is a different typeface. Arial is designed to be a cheap Helvetica so for consistency you'd want them to be the same. Your more specific options are "Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif" or "Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" -- pick the font family you like better. – Eric_B Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 13:55

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