What is a web safe font?
Web safe fonts are fonts that are widely available across different operating systems and web browsers. These fonts are considered safe because they're typically pre-installed on most devices, ensuring consistent display even if the specified font isn't explicitly installed on the user's system. Popular examples include Arial, Helvetica, and Times New Roman.
Here is list of the web safe fonts available on both Mac and Windows systems:
- Arial
- Helvetica
- Times New Roman
- Brush Script
- Comic Sans
- Courier or Courier New
- Garamond
- Georgia
- Impact
- Tahoma
- Trebuchet MS
- Verdana
What happens when a non-web safe font is used?
If the end viewer of the content doesn't have the font available that's used in the filed document, the font will fall back and instead use a different font that's available. For example, a sans serif font may fall back to Helvetica or a serif font may fall back to Times New Roman.
What impact could this have for my design?
Your end result may look different. When a font falls back and displays a different font to the end user, it is likely that their layout will change because the fallback font may have different measurements than the original font. In some cases, this can cause text content to overlap other text content, images, charts, or tables. It could also result in text running off of the visible page.
If you are creating designed reports for EDGAR, learn more in Designed Reporting for EDGAR.