These forms are referred to as fonts or typefaces. Fonts can be characterized by their proportionality and their serif characteristics. Non-proportional fonts, also known as monospaced fonts, assign exactly the same amount of horizontal space to each character. Monospaced fonts are ideal for creating tables of information where columns of characters must be aligned. Text created with non-proportional fonts often look as though they were produced on a typewriter.
Proportional fonts vary the spacing between characters according to the letter.
Text created with proportional fonts look more like they were typeset by a professional typographer. Two commonly-used proportional fonts are Times and Helvetica on the Macintosh and Times New Roman and Arial on Windows. This article is written using a proportional font. Serif fonts are designed with small ticks at the bottom of each character. These ticks aid the reader in following the text.