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What are Typefaces (fonts)?

The term typeface is frequently conflated with font; the two terms had more clearly differentiated meanings before the advent of desktop publishing. The current distinction between font and typeface is that a font designates a specific member of a type family such as roman, boldface, or italic type, while typeface designates a consistent visual appearance or style which can be a “family” or related set of fonts. For example, a given typeface such as Arial may include roman, bold, and italic fonts. In the metal type era, a font also meant a specific point size, but with digital scalable outline fonts this distinction is no longer valid, as a single font may be scaled to any size.

Typefaces can be divided into two main categories: serif and sans serif. Serifs comprise the small features at the end of strokes within letters. The printing industry refers to typeface without serifs as sans serif.

Serif

Sans Serif

Great variety exists among both serif and sans serif typefaces. Both groups contain faces designed for setting large amounts of body text, and others intended primarily as decorative. The presence or absence of serifs forms is only one of many factors to consider when choosing a typeface.

Why should I use Windows and Mac standard fonts?

Using Windows and Mac standard fonts guarantees the reader on any modern computer operating system and any web browser will be able to view your lesson article the same way you wrote it. Using exotic (or downloaded) fonts may fit your lesson style but unless the reader has the exact same font installed on their computer – the fonts will not match up. All your hard work formatting your lesson will be lost. Most likely, one of the readers exotic fonts will be automatically set in place and the lesson will look rather funny.

The Fonts:

The following fonts are common to both the Windows and Mac platform. These fonts are also known as “Browser Safe Fonts”.

Windows Fonts	Mac Fonts
Arial, Arial Black (san serif)	Arial, Arial Black, Gadget (san serif)
Comic Sans MS (cursive)	Comic Sans MS (cursive)
Courier New (monospace)	Courier New, Courier (monospace)
Georgia	Georgia
Impact	Impact, Charcoal
Lucida Console	Lucida Console, Monaco
Lucida Sans Unicode	Lucida Grande
Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua	Palatino
Tahoma	Tahoma, Geneva
Times New Roman	Times New Roman, Times
Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet MS Bold	Trebuchet MS
Verdana, Verdana Bold, Verdana Italic	Verdana, Verdana Bold
auenjpr (WebDings)	auenjpr (WebDings)
AUENJQP (WingDings)	AUENJQP (WingDings)

Using the fonts to write lessons on LearnHub:

In order to use the listed fonts, you must create your lesson article using the Textile Editor. The Textile Editor allows you to have full control over what font you choose as well as controlling the formatting (font size, color, spacing, etc.).

To change the font, you must use the “font-family” command style:
%{font-family:Comic Sans MS;}The fox jumped over the moon.%
This will change your font to The fox jumped over the moon.

All text within the two % symbols will change to the font you choose. You must always start and end with the % symbol. All text within the { } brackets are your style commands. You can add as many style commands as you wish.

Additional style commands include:

%{font-size:20px}Larger font%

%{color:red}Red font%

%{color:#ffffff}Color Code Font%

%{letter-spacing:3pt}L e t t e r S p a c i n g%

You can string all these commands together, separating them with the ; symbol:

%{font-family:comic sans ms; font-size:22px; color:#872d23;}The fox fell down.%

The fox fell down.