Which Font to Use?

To change the font settings in the Windows version of Internet Explorer, from the View menu choose Options. Internet Explorer opens the Options dialog. Make sure the General Tab is selected.

Next, click the Font Setting button to display the Fonts dialog, with the equivalent Font tab from the Preferences dialog in the Macintosh version of Internet Explorer.

Web browsers use two different font-proportional fonts and fixed-width fonts. If you’re unfamiliar with the difference, in proportional fonts characters are different widths, so the letter I is thinner than a capital W. It’s easiest to read in a proportional font, which is why all books use them, In contrast, in a fixed-width font; every character is the same width. Old typewriters tended to use fixed-width fonts. The main utility of fixed-width fonts in today’s Internet is that output from spreadsheets and other columnar documents can be displayed so all the columns line up correctly.

Almost all the text you see on the Web uses proportional font, so select a different font from the Proportional Font drop-down menu to change how most web pages display. Feel free to change the fixed-width font s well, but you’re unlikely to see the results of that change often.

On windows, Times New Roman works pretty well, so you may not feel the need to change it. If you do, try Comic San MS if that’s installed on your system. I’ve used that in Windows and rather like it. On the Macintosh I strongly recommend you switch your font from the standard Times to New York or another font that was designed for screen display (They tend to have names of cities). Once you’ve made your choices, click OK button to save them.

Don’t worry about the Language, Character Set or Font Encoding settings unless you use alternate languages on your computer.

Fonts

The aspect of your web browser that you’re most likely to want to change is the font. Perhaps it’s too small, perhaps it’s too large, or perhaps you simply don’t like the default font, which is Times New Roman in Windows and Times on the Mac.

There’s a huge debate on the Internet about whether or not individuals should be allowed to specify what font their web browsers use. Web page designers want to control the look of their web pages completely, and if you’ve chosen to read web pages using a very large font because your eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, you’re upsetting the design of the pages you see.

Personally, I believe in giving individuals choice and control over their lives, and that applies equally to web page display. So, as mush as I encourage you to customize your copy of Internet Explorer as you want, keep this debate in mind, because some web pages will explicitly specify certain fonts, and you may not be able to override those setting.