An important element to web site design is the choice of font. The selection of an appropriate font can add a great deal to your web site design and help you get your message across. There are literally thousands of fonts to choose from. Unfortunately, not all fonts can be used on the Web. The reason for this is that not all computers, operating systems, and browsers can support every font. In actuality, there are only a few select fonts that are common across all platforms and that you can expect to be able to use in your web site without any problems. A good selection of web safe fonts can be found here.

What are your options if you really want to use a font that isn't generally supported?

One option in common practice is to use an image in place of text in your web site pages. This means that you would create an image in your favorite program, such as Photoshop, and insert that into your html code. The downside is that images don't generally work as well in helping your site in search engine results. Google, et al, prefer to be able to find text when they are crawling your web pages. Consequently, it may be a good idea to minimize the number of images that you use in place of text on your web site if search engine placement is important to you. When considering a new design for your web site, it may be beneficial to let your graphic designer know that you only want to use (or primarily use) web safe fonts.