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Most text that appears in a Web site is written in html (hyper text markup language). The fonts that appear in the html of a Web site depend on what fonts are available to the computer that it is being viewed on. The Web designer can choose fonts that he would like to appear in the site, but if the viewer doesn't have that font in their computers system the site will automatically display whatever default font that is set in their browsers preferences. The only way to insure that the font desired is displayed is to choose a font that is included in all computer systems. For instance, the font "Arial" or "Times" are pretty safe fonts because of their prevalence in computers. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), is a new type of file that stores information telling the computer which fonts to look for first as well as spacing, color and font size. CSS is supported only in newer browsers.

The size of the font varies on different computer platforms. The size of text created in html will appear larger on IBM type computers than on Macs. The size of text can also be varied by the viewer. In the browsers preferences there is a place to increase the size of the text that appears in the site. This is very helpful to those people who have difficulty seeing small text on the screen, but what does this mean to the design of the site? Well, if the designer had created a page that has a paragraph of text at the top, then an image below it, and then just enough text to fill the rest of the space on a 14" Mac monitor, then it is viewed on a 14" IBM screen, or the viewer has increased their browsers font size, then what happens is that the text, being larger, will push the image below the first paragraph down the screen, and the text that fit nicely on the designers monitor is now pushed even further down increasing the size of the whole page not to mention dis-aligning any positioning that was originally intended. This is a simple example and you can imagine what happens on a site that has a complex layout. The only way to make absolutely sure that your text appears in it's correct font and size is to make it as a graphic and not as html. Designers love this because they can insure the appearance of the text goes well with other graphics and the layout of the page. However, overuse of graphics can sacrifice download time and should be used wisely.