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familiarity and proven legibility, make them ideal carriers of web-based content. The trick,

then, is to make sure the CSS references them correctly.

Cascading style sheets provide web designers the means to discontinue the use of messy

inline tags and other display-related markup. In addition to creating far cleaner

HTML, CSS allows for advanced typographic control, such as general styling (italicizing and

bolding), employing small caps and drop caps, precise sizing through different units of

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measurement, and much more. With this much power, it is vital to write CSS type defini-

tions that accommodate different platforms.

For instance, all Windows-based and newer Mac-based machines have Arial installed, but

the same cannot be said for older Mac-based computers, which often rely on the similar

but subtly different Helvetica.6 To produce a similar experience on both operating systems,

the CSS needs to define both faces, such as the following:

p {

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

}

It is also important to note that some fonts may not be called the same thing between OSs,

and ones that are may look slightly different between the platforms. The font Times is

common on the Mac, but completely absent on most PCs, except for a rare variation that

produces a grungy, distressed version of the classic Times New Roman. To avoid the

appearance of this nasty alternative and ensure the same look is produced on both plat-

forms, the CSS would be the following:

p {

font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif;

}

Finally, it is critical to include a generic term at the end, whether serif, sans-serif, or

monospace. It is foolhardy to assume any given machine has even the most generic font

installed, so a contingency rule must be added. Otherwise, the browser will use its own

style sheet (and that is almost never desirable). Testing the website on all platforms will, of

course, weed out many of these potential design trolls.

Consider contrast

Finally, contrast is very important in web design, and most important when designing text.