Two great screen fonts: Georgia and Verdana

Summary

This article describes two very readable screen fonts and provides download links to them.

Fonts that look good in print don't always look good on a computer screen. Reading information from a screen is easier if you use a font that has been specially designed for on-screen reading. Two such fonts deserve special mention: Georgia and Verdana.

Georgia is a lovely serif font, and Verdana is a highly-readable sans-serif font. When compared to older fonts like Times New Roman and Arial, they appear much easier to read on-screen. Look at the following comparisons:

Georgia versus
Times New Roman

Verdana versus
Arial

The first thing you'll notice, is that Georgia and Verdana are wider than most fonts. This adds to their readability. Another interesting characteristic is that their lower-case letters are quite tall — they're around two-thirds of the height of the upper-case letters. (This is particularly clear with Verdana.) This also adds to their readability.

Here's what Microsoft has to say about these fonts:

The typography group at Microsoft contains some of the world's experts in creating type for reading on the screen. [They] commissioned world-renowned type designer Matthew Carter to create two new typefaces exclusively for Microsoft, designed specifically for screen readability. [The] Verdana and Georgia typefaces have become classics, especially with the growth in screen reading sparked by the Internet.

Better web browsing

What font are you using to view this page now? If it's Times New Roman, you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much better the web will look in Verdana.

In Internet Explorer, select Internet Options from the Tools menu and then click on the Fonts button.

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