Complete Guide to Pre-Installed Fonts in Linux, Mac, and Windows
by Megan McDermott, 10 November 2007 - 4:48pm
Web designers often feel that they are restricted to a basic set of core web fonts. This small set of fonts has been widely distributed and most designers stick to them, just to be on the safe side. However, when you look at the fonts available on the three most widely used operating systems, you can see that this really isn't necessary.
All three operaing systems come with a variety of fonts, many of which can be reasonably substitued for each other without affecting the design.You can also choose fonts that have the same look and feel that you want, but may not be exact matches. This allows for much more flexibility in design while still ensuring compatibility across operating systems.
Stacking fonts in your CSS allows you to cover all your bases by specifying back-up fonts for users who don't have your preferred typeface. For example, the font stack for this site is:
font-family: "Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode","Eras Medium ITC","DejaVu Sans",Helvetica,Verdana,sans-serif
For more on creating great font stacks, read Better CSS Font Stacks from Unit Interactive.
About these tables
- Ubuntu is used as a sample Gnu/Linux operating system. Other distributions may have different fonts installed. If you can provide a list of pre-installed fonts on other distros please send it to me and I will incorporate it into this article.
- Fonts listed in the same row are near equivalents of each other, with the exception of the last row in each table which is used for other/non matching fonts. The "matching" fonts may not match exactly but in practical use can be subsituted for each other without problems
- All font samples were taken from a sample page in Firefox at .9em (Linux, Mac, Windows). Keep relative sizing in mind when choosing a list of fonts to specify (i.e. you don't want big sizing variations depending on which font the user has installed).
- The "Installed with MS Programs" column lists typefaces incuded with common Microsoft applications. You can probably expect that most Windows users have some of these applications installed, and some Mac users may have Office installed as well. Non-starred entires are installed with all versions of Office 2003/2007 and many other programs. Starred (*) entries are installed primarily with Office Professional Plus 2007 but some also come with with Office 2003 Professional Edition, Publisher, and other programs. Entries with a - next to them are installed with Office 2003 and other older programs (that are still quite pervasive at this point). Details are available in the Microsoft Typography Database.
- In the Mac OSX column, entries with a + are included with OSX 10.5 (Leopard), entries with a - are included with versions prior to 10.4 (but not in 10.4)
- Starred entries in the Ubuntu column are installed by the mscorefonts package. According to a survey on the Ubuntu Forums, approximately 74% of Ubuntu users have mscorefonts installed.
Serif
| Windows | Installed with MS Programs | Mac OS 10.4 | Ubuntu (Linux) |
|---|---|---|---|
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* |
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* |
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* |
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- |
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- |
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- *Cambria and Constantia are part of the Windows Vista font pack and are included with Windows Vista and as an upgrade to Office 2003. These are cleartype fonts which means that they render differently than traditional fonts (anti-aliasing is used to make them appear smoother). On Windows they tend to look bad on non-Microsoft web browsers when cleartype is not enabled in the desktop preferences. Cleartype is not enabled by default on Windows XP but it is included as an option when installing IE 7.
- Palatino and New York are not installed by default on OS 10.4 but are installed on previous versions
Sans Serif
| Windows | Installed with MS Programs | Mac OS 10.4 | Ubuntu (Linux) |
|---|---|---|---|
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* |
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* |
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- DejaVu is a modification of Bitstream Vera Sans, with additional unicode characters
Script/Handwriting
| Windows | Installed with MS Programs | Mac OS 10.4 | Ubuntu (Linux) |
|---|---|---|---|
* |
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* |
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- One way to counter the problem with script fonts in Windows (namely, that only Comic Sans is installed by default), would be to specify a nice serif as your last option (Georgia, for example) and make it italic. Script fonts usually don't have italic variants, so people with nice script fonts installed will see the font you intended while others will see italic Georgia which isn't quite the same but would still look nice. This technique would also work for decorative fonts or other categories where no suitable alternative is available on some operating systems.
Monospace
| Windows | Installed with MS Programs | Mac OS 10.4 | Ubuntu (Linux) |
|---|---|---|---|
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* |
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+ |
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Decorative
| Windows | Installed with MS Programs | Mac OS 10.4 | Ubuntu (Linux) |
|---|---|---|---|
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* |
Symbol/Dingbat
(link to full character set where available)
Of course, it is probably not a good idea to use these fonts in web pages! However, they are listed here just to keep this resource complete.
| Windows | Installed with MS Programs | Mac OS 10.4 | Ubuntu (Linux) |
|---|---|---|---|
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Foreign Language
This list is by no means complete and is based on what I was able to find out online about various typefaces. If you have more information that could help to complete this list please contact me.
Notes:
- In the OSX column, fonts marked with ** are part of the Additional Fonts package (installed by default)
- In Ubuntu, many of these fonts will look the same as Deja Vu/Bitstream Vera Sans when typing latin characters. You do not have 10 versions of the same font under different names – these are foreign language variations. Foreign language support must be enabled in some cases to see the characters (I think ???).
| Windows | Installed with MS Programs | Mac OS 10.4 | Ubuntu (Linux) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-language support (Unicode) |
Arial Unicode (installed with Office):
|
Last Resort (fallback font, contains all unicode characters) |
DejaVu (Unicode):
Gentium (Unicode):
GentiumAlt is designed to improve the appearance of letters with multiple diacritics. Free Serif (Unicode):
FreeSans and FreeMono include fewer glyphs than Free Serif but do have some multi-language support. |
| Aboriginal |
Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics:
Cherokee:
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| Arabic |
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| Simplified Chinese |
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| Traditional Chinese |
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| Hebrew |
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| Indic |
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| Japanese |
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| Korean |
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| Thai |
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| Miscellaneous |
Western language variants:
Cryllic:
Thaana:
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Cyrillic:
Armenian:
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Lao:
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Discussion
To discuss, ask questions or comment on this article please see the Webmaster Forums discussion about this article.References:
- Mac Fonts from Apple
- List of System fonts in Mac OS X (includes fonts installed with iWork and iLife, which are usually included with OSX)
- Common fonts to all versions of Windows & Mac equivalents
- Microsoft Typography Database
- Fonts installed with Windows XP
- Fonts available in each version of Windows
- Font supplied with Window Service Pack 2
- Fonts installed with Office
- South Asian Script Fonts
- Indic font list
- Fonts that ship with Adobe Creative Suite 3
How-to's
- Better CSS Font Stacks - explains how to create a font stack and recommends some attractive stacks for both paragraphs and headings.
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About the Author
Megan is co-founder and editor of A Padded Cell and lead administrator at The Webmaster Forums. She has been designing websites since 1997 and currently works at the University of Waterloo. In her spare time she likes practicing yoga and being nice to the environment. Read her web design blog at MeganMcDermott.com.
