The difference between serif and Sans-serif fonts

In the western countries of the Roman alphabet, the font is divided into two categories: Sans Serif and Serif, the typewriter, although also belong to the Sans Serif, but because of the equal width of the font, so the other independent monospace this kind of, for example, in the Web, to represent the code often use the same width font

Serif means that there are additional decorations at the beginning and end of the stroke, and that the strokes are different in size from straight to horizontal. On the contrary, Sans serif does not have these additional decorations, the stroke is roughly the same thickness. The following figure:

We can see that we usually use the Georgia, Times New Roman and so on belong to the serif font, and Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, etc. belong to sans serif font. For Chinese, there are two kinds of the same, it is obvious that the song body, the fine-ming body (commonly used in traditional) and so on belong to Serif, and bold, young circle, etc. belong to sans Serif.

General comparison of Serif and sans serif:

①serif's fonts are easy to identify, so they are more readable. Conversely Sans serif is more eye-catching, but in the case of reading, Sans serif easy to cause the puzzle of letter recognition, often have back and forth to reread and go up and down the disorder situation.

②serif emphasizes the beginning and end of the alphabet strokes, so it is easier to identify the continuity before and after.

③serif emphasizes a word rather than a single letter, whereas Sans Serif emphasizes individual letters.

④ in small font situations, usually sans serif is clearer than serif.

Because the boldface character belongs to the "sans Serif" (sans-serif), and the italicized word belongs to the "lined body" (serif), the latter is easier for the identification of the human eye, so it is more comfortable to read. Japanese text is a European-American sans-serif (sans-serif), so most people use the Goethe body (the equivalent of the Western text of the sans-serif body).

Applicable use:

Usually the article Nevin, the text uses the serif font which is easy to read, this may increase the legibility, moreover the long time reads because will read in Word, is less likely to be tired. But the title, the form uses the character to use the more eye-catching sans serif font, it needs to be remarkable, eye-catching, but does not have to stare at these words for a long time to read.

such as promotional materials, posters, for the sake of eye-catching, its short passages will also be used sans serif font. However, in books, newspapers and magazines, the text has a considerable length of the situation, it should be used serif font to reduce the reader's reading burden. This principle should also be followed in web design and browser settings.

Practical application:

In Firefox (currently only Firefox has this feature), you can individually specify Sans Serif, Serif, and monospace text, but this option is not set in the Tools menu, but you can type about in Addressbar: Config, and then filter the font in filter to find the following preference Name:

Code:

Font.name.monospace.x-western

Font.name.monospace.zh-cn

Font.name.sans-serif.x-western

Font.name.sans-serif.zh-cn

Font.name.serif.x-western

Font.name.serif.zh-cn

You can specify a corresponding font according to the above Sans Serif, Serif, and monospace principles, in font (or font-family), according to the CSS rules of the consortium. The final requirement is to specify a generic-family such as serif to avoid using the serif default font on the computer when the client does not specify a font.

Because the serif font is very readable, it is the most widely used place of publication or printed matter, such as the text of a large paragraph of text as a form of work.

The more common line fonts are: Georgia, Garamond, Times New Roman, Chinese song and so on.

No liner font is more smooth, the line is generally uniform thickness. More suitable for use as WordArt, headings, and so on. Because no serif font is usually thicker and more uniform, so in small font display, readability will be reduced, easy to cause visual fatigue.

Common sans serif fonts are: Trebuchet MS, Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Chinese XXFarEastFont-tw, XXFarEastFont-Arial, and so on.

Other common font families

In printing, in addition to serif and Sans-serif, there are usually monospace, scripts handwriting (such as flower body), blackletter type body (also called Gothic brother Curvier. Strictly speaking, many commonly used serif fonts are actually gothic fonts), ornamental decorations (those fonts that have decorative patterns on or around text strokes. Many medieval books are very common. If the brain residue is really a font, then you should be able to calculate the decorative body bar ... and symbol symbol fonts (such as the famous wedding123 ...)

monospace Equal width font:

The so-called equal-width font refers to a font with a consistent width for each character. A notable example is the Courier New font. Because the character width is consistent, it is particularly easy to align and can be quickly and precisely positioned to a column of a row, so it is often used to display code.

Cursive writing body: equivalent to the handwriting in the printing science. The Chinese cursive is such a font.

Default fonts in Web page design: Font size (12px), row height (18px)

font:12px/1.5 Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-serif;

①font-family defaults to use Tahoma. Tahoma is the default font for Windows operating system in English, this font is more balanced, showing Chinese and English mixed row is very good, is a durable engaging font.

The ②mac OS x system has a more elegant system default font than Tahoma: Helvetica, Helvetica fonts for non-MAC systems are RIP versions.

③arial is the default font for early Windows English systems, and XP and Vista are all Tahoma.

④ the last Sans-serif is for the intrepid Linux DIY family. Linux defaults to kernel only, the font is completely user-defined, for this part of the user, Sans-serif may be useful.

⑤ Finally, whether in XP or Vista, do not specify the Chinese font of the Web page, the default is the song body. Therefore the ' font-family ' is superfluous and can be omitted.