Generic font
A generic font family is a CSS keyword representing a broad category of typefaces that browsers can select as a fallback.
Web Design Playground, Second Edition
A generic font family is a CSS font-family category that represents a broad class of typefaces and serves as a fallback when a specific font is unavailable.
- How it is used
- Provides dependable font-family fallbacks when a preferred typeface is unavailable.
- How deep it goes
- Defines five families and demonstrates font-family usage, but stops short of detailed typography internals.
- Examples
- Uses serif and sans-serif rules for headings and paragraphs, then places generic families after system fonts in fallback stacks.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via CSS by assigning serif, sans-serif, monospace, cursive, or fantasy to font-family.
Read how Web Design Playground, Second Edition explains generic font →
Web Design Playground
A fallback font category name in CSS that lets the browser choose an available font of a general type such as serif or sans-serif.
- How it is used
- Provides a broad font-family choice and a fallback after a named web font.
- How deep it goes
- Defines five generic families and demonstrates applying them with font-family, including a named-font fallback.
- Examples
- Uses sans-serif for an h3, serif for a p, and Lato with sans-serif for paragraph text.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via the font-family property as a direct type category or named-font fallback.
Related concepts
- font-family propertyused by · The CSS font-family property specifies a preferred typeface or ordered sequence of fallback typefaces for rendering text.
- font stackconfigured by · A font stack is an ordered list of typefaces that specifies fallback choices when earlier fonts are unavailable.
- serifincludes · A serif typeface is a typeface whose letterforms have projecting finishing strokes at the ends of their main strokes.
- sans serif typefaceincludes · A sans-serif typeface is a typeface whose letterforms lack projecting finishing strokes called serifs.
- system fontalternative to · A system font is a typeface installed on an operating system and available for local text rendering.
- fontkind of · A font is a set of glyphs with a particular typeface design and rendering characteristics such as size, weight, style, or width.
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