[ACCEPTED]-Is Tahoma's font safe for the web?-compatibility

Tahoma's fine. Good replacements are Geneva 8 and Verdana, with a generic sans-serif for 7 backup. Better CSS Font Stacks is a great resource for suggesting 6 these kinds of things.

If you're working 5 with a designer who wants to use certain 4 fonts, make sure s/he understands that very 3 few fonts are web-safe sooner rather than 2 later. It'll save you from some headache 1 down the road.

It depends on what you mean by "safe".

If 19 you mean that a majority of the users have 18 the font, and that you can pick a reasonable 17 alternative for the rest, then it's safe.

If 16 you mean that everyone should be able to 15 view the page exactly as you see it, then 14 it's not safe. Actually no font is safe, except 13 the default fonts in CSS. That's why you 12 should always provide alternative fonts 11 as backup, and always provide a default 10 font as the last resort. Example:

font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

Note that 9 even if the user has the Tahoma font, it 8 will not always render exactly the same. The 7 user can have different settings for font 6 smoothing, which greatly affects how the 5 font is rendered. There may also be slight 4 differences in kerning and hinting for different 3 versions of the same font.

If you need some 2 text to look exactly the same all the time, the 1 only option is to make an image out of it.

According to the Code Style Font Family Survey, Tahoma is available on 5 about 98% of Windows and 74% of Macintosh 4 systems.

Their Build Better CSS Font Stacks page lists common stacks 3 organized by category. They also have a 2 Font Stack Builder that tells you the likelihood of a visitor 1 seeing a particular font in the stack.

I think it is quite a safe font to use. Others 7 that are popular are Verdana and Arial. Times 6 New Roman is also popular, but it's a Serif 5 font, so it's not so nice for a monitor.

Added: While 4 browsing through Wikipedia about this font, I 3 found a link to a nice long-running survey 2 about most available fonts for all platforms. Check 1 it out: http://www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/sampler-CombinedResults.shtml

my 2 cents: Tahoma is not included by default 3 on many Linux distros (like Ubuntu, Mint) and 2 it's a pain in the ass to install it. So 1 it's not so safe to use Tahoma.

The fact is that NO font alone is is safe 33 for all computers, and all browsers.

Get 32 the idea of "Web Safe Fonts" out of your 31 head. You should NEVER write a website 30 depending on a single font. The only safe 29 way is to write a series of fallback in 28 the CSS. For instance: "font-family: Tohoma, Helvetica, Sans-Serif, Proportional"

For 27 instance: Many Android tablets ship with 26 ONLY Droid Sans and Droid Serif, these are 25 more than capable of displaying any webpage 24 designed with the W3 recommendation of having 23 a last default of "Sans-Serif", "Proportional" or 22 "Serif", and make sure you test your webpage 21 layout forcing a variety of fonts into that 20 default.

Many browsers allow you to embed 19 fonts, but older browsers do not support 18 this so you can't depend on it. However, this 17 is an excellent option to increase the base 16 that can view your page in it's optimal 15 layout.

As for anyone implying that Linux 14 and other Alternative Operating Systems 13 are not a consideration: These Operating 12 Systems holds 5% of the desktop market, and 11 20% of the mobile market. Now if your website 10 receives a million desktop users that is 9 5,000 users you are BREAKING your website's 8 layout on just because you thought it would 7 be "convenient" to depend on Tahoma's font 6 size. I would like to see you try to explain 5 that to your boss.

Additionally, Linux has 4 been increasing in market share recently, not 3 decreasing. As have Specialty Linux Hybrid 2 platforms like Android, Chrome OS, Xandros, WebOS, and 1 BadaOS

Tahoma is safely enough as almost all the 4 modern operating systems support that font. But 3 if your site targets users with old non-windows 2 operating systems, you must consider another 1 stylesheet to support them.

Thomha is mostly websafe, however you could 4 use Verdana as most of the characters are 3 the same as thomha cept the spacing is a 2 little different. So having that second 1 on your stack should help.

Cheers,

Jamie

Tahoma is not used on iOS devices, so if 6 you have a mobile first approach it may 5 be not the best choice. Otherwise you have 4 to buy it as webfont and include it to your 3 project. Since its not on GoogleFonts you 2 really have to buy it (as far is i know).

Regards 1 Daniel