Re: Is there a standard use of fonts for online help?

["D. Margulis" <ampersandvirgule -at- WORLDNET -dot- ATT -dot- NET>]

Bergen, Jane wrote:
>
> Yes, Arial and MS Sans are the most common, but Microsoft's new help
> uses Verdana (free from the Microsoft site) and I think I read somewhere
> that they developed this JUST FOR online help. I've started using it in
> all my online because it's a nice, open, extremely readable text, even
> at smaller sizes. You might want to take a look at it.
>
> Jane


Jane and all (Jane and Good All??),

Be careful with Verdana. Yes it is highly legible and a dandy face all
around. But do not assume that it is installed on the client PC. While
it is a free download from MS, most users do not routinely scope our the
MS website for free fonts to download. Everyone on a Windows PC, though,
has Arial installed.

Why does it matter?

It may not. If you are in a position to redistribute and install the
font on the user's PC, that's fine.

If you are delivering your Help as a PDF file (not likely, but possible)
and you embed the font, that's fine.

But if you are delivering your Help as HTML, then Verdana may display,
or the next font down the list (Arial?, MS Sans?, [generic] sans-serif?)
will display instead. (Oh yeah, I forgot, I'm not supposed to use
_display_ that way. Sorry.)

This unintended result may be okay, too, but it will change the
appearance of the page significantly, because Verdana has a much larger
x-height and a wider set than the other faces. So sizes you select that
are legible in Verdana may be less legible in another face on systems
where Verdana is not installed. This affects the amount of copy that
fits across a table cell or frame of fixed width and thus may affect the
relative position of text and illustration, too.

Do a little testing, toggling between Verdana and Arial on your own
system to see what I mean.

Dick