31 Best Web Safe Fonts
By: Everything Cj
Tags: Web, Safe, Şans, Google, Fonts

31 Best Web Safe Fonts

Let’s jump right into it.

31 Best Web Safe Fonts

1. Arial

Arial

Arial is a classic sans serif font, suitable for both paragraphs and headlines. It’s long been a staple in web design. Although in recent years, it’s often used as a fallback in a font stack, rather than as the main font-family.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif.

2. Baskerville

Baskerville

Baskerville is a relatively thick serif font, originally developed as a typeface by John Baskerville in 1750. The design is well-balanced, using a mix of thick and thin strokes to soften the hard edges of a typical serif typeface. It’s well supported by newer Apple and Microsoft OS versions.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Baskerville, Baskerville Old Face, Garamond, Times New Roman, serif

3. Bodoni MT / Bodoni 72

Bodoni MT / Bodoni 72

Bodoni MT is a serif font, like Times New Roman, more suitable for paragraph text than headlines for most websites. Bodoni MT is available by default with Microsoft 10 and some older versions. Bodoni 72 is included with macOS Sierra and newer versions.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Bodoni MT, Bodoni 72, Didot, Didot LT STD, Hoefler Text, Garamond, Times New Roman, serif

4. Calibri

Calibri

Calibri is Microsoft’s standard sans serif font and has been since its release with Microsoft Office 2007. It has a soft, modern look, with rounded edges to elevate the typical sans serif feel, making it more warm than robotic.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Calibri, Candara, Segoe, Segoe UI, Optima, Arial, sans-serif

5. Calisto MT

Calisto MT

Calisto MT is a serif font with slightly softer and less pronounced serifs than most similar typefaces. It’s a standard Microsoft font, included with most newer versions of Windows. The macOS or iOS equivalent is the Bookman Old Style font.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Calisto MT, Bookman Old Style, Bookman, Goudy Old Style, Garamond, Hoefler Text, Bitstream Charter, Georgia, serif

6. Cambria

Cambria

Cambria is an even softer serif font, with, in many cases, barely noticeable serifs even for capital letters. This gives it a more modern feel and also maintains a high level of readability on screens.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Cambria, Georgia, serif

7. Candara

Candara

Candara is a sans serif font. It’s part of Microsoft’s ClearType font collection. The macOS and iOS equivalent is Optima Regular. The uneven stroke weights make it feel a bit less modern and corporate than other sans serif fonts.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Candara, Calibri, Segoe, Segoe UI, Optima, Arial, sans-serif

8. Century Gothic

Century Gothic

Century Gothic is a geometric sans serif font, with a very clean and balanced look. It’s a great font for the web, especially for headings and subheadings. It was originally designed to compete with the font Futura. It’s included with most Microsoft and Apple operating systems.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Century Gothic, Century Gothic, Apple Gothic, sans-serif

9. Consolas

Consolas

Consolas is a sans serif font with a unique approach to design. All characters have the same width, which is why it uses serifs only for the letter “I” and the lowercase “l”. It’s part of the ClearType collection.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Consolas, Monaco, monospace

10. Copperplate Gothic

Copperplate Gothic

Copperplate Gothic is a gothic-inspired font, with slight glyphic serifs on certain letters. As it’s inspired by gothic runes, there’s no lowercase font available.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Copperplate, Copperplate Gothic Light, fantasy

11. Courier New

Courier New

Courier New is a monospaced slab serif font, with much thinner regular text than most other serif and sans serif fonts. It has almost perfect coverage by both Microsoft and Apple on both computers and mobile devices.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Courier New, Courier, Lucida Sans Typewriter, Lucida Typewriter, monospace

12. Dejavu Sans

Dejavu Sans

Dejavu Sans is a sans serif font with clean, straight lines, almost a throwback to the classic sans fonts like Arial and Verdana.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Dejavu Sans, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif

13. Didot

Didot

Didot is a font inspired by the original Didot typefaces, used by 19th-century French printing business, the Didot family. It’s an Apple mainstay, supported by the majority of their OS and devices.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Didot, Didot LT STD, Hoefler Text, Garamond, Calisto MT, Times New Roman, serif

14. Franklin Gothic

Franklin Gothic

Franklin Gothic is a sans serif font with unusually thick letters, almost as if the bold version of another font. The original typeface was developed in the early 20th century by American Type Founders. It’s a good font choice for headlines, but might not be a great choice for body text.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Franklin Gothic, Arial Bold

15. Garamond

Garamond

Garamond is a serif font, inspired by typefaces made by the 16th-century Parisian engraver, Claude Garamond. It has softer, rounder edges than some of the more standard serif fonts, like Times New Roman. Modern versions of Microsoft and Apple OS include their own versions of the Garamond font.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Garamond, Baskerville, Baskerville Old Face, Hoefler Text, Times New Roman, serif

16. Georgia

Georgia

A close relative of Garamond, Georgia is another serif font with mostly rounded edges and a fairly warm feel. It was developed for Microsoft in 1996 and is still one of the most widespread MS fonts. It’s supported by virtually all Windows and macOS versions.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Georgia, Times, Times New Roman, serif

17. Gill Sans

Gill Sans

Gill Sans is a sans serif font, with sharp, clean lines that give it a modern look. It’s not ideal for paragraph text out of the box, because of its lack of contrast between letters, and close spacing. But as you can see in the example text, it makes a great-looking headline. Most iOS, macOS, and Windows-powered devices support it.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Gill Sans, Gill Sans MT, Calibri, sans-serif

18. Goudy Old Style

Goudy Old Style

Goudy Old Style is a soft old-style serif font, with strong serifs and an old-fashioned look and feel. The periods are diamond-shaped rather than the regular perfect, round circles of most serif fonts. It’s included with most newer versions of Windows.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Goudy Old Style, Garamond, Big Caslon, Times New Roman, serif

19. Helvetica

Helvetica

Helvetica is perhaps the most famous font of all time, and definitely one of the only fonts to have its own dedicated documentary. It’s a modern sans serif font, inspired by other modern Swiss and German fonts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Rather than a soft, rounded, and warm design, it’s balanced and focused on clean lines and shapes. This makes it one of the few fonts suitable for both body copy and headlines. All Apple devices include Helvetica fonts, while Microsoft defaults to Arial, its MS equivalent.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif

20. Impact

Impact

Impact is a realist sans-serif font, with a very thick bolded look as its default for all text, capital, and lowercase alike. The boldness makes it stand out from regular text and makes it perfect for headlines or CTAs (calls to action), but it’s not ideal for body copy.

It was part of the original core fonts for the web package in 1998. It’s still widely included and supported by both Apple and Windows computers and phones to this day.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Impact, Charcoal, Helvetica Inserat, Bitstream Vera Sans Bold, Arial Black, sans serif

21. Lucida Bright

Lucida Bright

Lucida Bright is the serif font in Microsoft’s line of Lucida fonts, developed for MS in 1991. One of the things that makes it stand out is the use of more square, sturdier serifs, for example on the capital “T” and “L”. It’s included by default in most newer versions of Windows, whereas macOS typically only includes the sans serif font Lucida Grande, making Georgia a logical fallback font.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Lucida Bright, Georgia, serif

22. Lucida Sans

Lucida Sans

Lucida Sans is a clean-cut humanist sans serif font, designed specifically to complement the serif fonts in the Lucida line. There’s a greater variation in the stroke weight than with the cleaner sans fonts like Helvetica or Arial. This makes it feel a bit less futuristic or robotic, and more playful. Out of the box, it’s a great font for headlines and CTAs.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Lucida Sans, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif

23. Microsoft Sans Serif

Microsoft Sans Serif

Microsoft Sans Serif is a sans serif font first introduced with Windows 2000. It’s the successor to the MS Sans Serif font, which was also known as Helv (short for Helvetica). It’s inspired by and based on Helvetica, the leading sans serif typeface in modern times.

It’s a clean font with even stroke weight, leading to a clean, professional look. Perfect for headlines and corporate websites. It was included as one of the original fonts for the web and is still standard for all Microsoft devices.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: MS Sans Serif, sans-serif

24. Optima

Optima

Optima is a humanist sans serif font, with varying stroke weight and varying symmetry. This makes it look almost done by hand, which combats the typical mass-produced feel of a sans serif font. It’s one of the standard Apple sans serif fonts and supported by most iOS and macOS devices. The Microsoft equivalent is Segoe.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Optima, Segoe, Segoe UI, Candara, Calibri, Arial, sans-serif

25. Palatino

Palatino

Palatino is another old-style serif and would feel right at home in any online newspaper or magazine. But it’s less uniform than something like a Georgia or Times New Roman, with varying stroke weights and shapes.

The design approach helps to soften sharp letters like k, l, x, y, and z. It’s also slightly bolder than other serif fonts. These two factors help it feel a bit warmer. Palatino is included with the majority of Windows and Apple devices.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Palatino LT STD, Book Antiqua, Georgia, serif

26. Perpetua

Perpetua

Perpetua is a serif font with a unique design, originally created by English sculptor Eric Gill. There’s a sharp contrast in the stroke weight, for example, look at the lowercase “e” or the number “3”. This gives the font a creative, almost playful quality. It’s typically a Windows font, but Baskerville, a close relative, is standard on most Apple devices.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Perpetua, Baskerville, Big Caslon, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif

27. Rockwell

Rockwell

Rockwell is a square or slab serif font with very bold, nearly monoweight lettering. It’s suitable for headlines or CTAs, but the added font-weight isn’t great for body text. It’s included in most newer versions of MS Windows.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Rockwell, Courier Bold, Courier, Georgia, Times, Times New Roman, serif

28. Segoe UI

Segoe UI

Segoe UI is the leading sans serif font of the Segoe font family. Microsoft not only uses it in many applications but also in various marketing materials for its products.

It’s a modern font, with symmetrical letters and little variation in stroke weight. The font isn’t included with Apple computers, but the equivalent Helvetica Neue is similar in look and feel.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Segoe UI, Frutiger, Dejavu Sans, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif

29. Tahoma

Tahoma

Tahoma is another Microsoft-developed sans serif font. It has slightly bolder letters than Segoe UI and uses square dots for its lowercase letters, periods, and other marks.

It’s a clean, uniform font, and wouldn’t feel out of place in content or headings. It’s included in all Microsoft devices, and virtually all Apple devices.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Segoe, sans-serif

30. Trebuchet MS

Trebuchet MS

Trebuchet MS is another sans serif font developed by Microsoft. It was one of the original fonts included in the core fonts for the web package by Microsoft. It’s still supported by virtually all Microsoft and Apple devices. The letters are slimmer than many other sans serif fonts, making it an option for paragraphs and body text.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Trebuchet MS, Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Sans, sans-serif

31. Verdana

Verdana

Verdana, a clean sans serif font, is another Microsoft staple that’s been around since 1996. The stroke weight is fairly low for a sans serif, leading to slim, easy to read letters. You can use it for both paragraph text and headlines without issue. It’s supported by virtually all Apple and Windows devices.

Recommended Font Stack

Font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif

Web Safe Cursive Fonts

If you want to use a web safe cursive font, you don’t have too many options to choose from. Specifically:

Segoe script

Rage

Script MT

Snell Roundhand

Lucida Handwriting

There aren’t any cursive fonts that are universally supported across Apple and Microsoft devices. You should consider that using a cursive font for your body text may not be a great idea, as readability is a huge part of website usability.

You should always use highly readable text for your paragraphs otherwise visitors with impaired vision will have a hard time reading the text on your site. This can lead to high bounce rates and a general lack of engagement with your content.

Web Safe Sans Serif Fonts

Sans means “without” in French, so sans serif essentially means “without serif”. A serif is a line or stroke added to a longer stroke in a letter. For example, the small vertical lines under the top stroke in a capital “T”, common in newspaper or magazine headlines. Sans serif fonts are the most common and popular on the web, so you have a lot of options to choose from:

Arial

Calibri

Candara

Century Gothic

Consolas

Dejavu Sans

Franklin Gothic

Gill Sans

Helvetica

Lucida Sans

MS Sans Serif

Neue Helvetica

Optima

Segoe UI

Tahoma

Trebuchet MS

Verdana

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