Why would Arial be placed before Helvetica when using font-family in CSS?

Why would Arial be placed before Helvetica when using a font-family in CSS?

  • I've seen this order used in many website's stylesheet. For example:     font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; To my understanding this would mean that if the Arial typeface wasn't found it would default to the Helvetica typeface. I feel the chances of someone not having Arial yet having Helvetica is very slim. Basically my question is not how font-family functions in this scenario but the logic (if any) behind including Arial prior to Helvetica. The inclusion of Helvetica hints that the user wouldn't mind the text being shown in this typeface, which will never occur if it is second to Arial.

  • Answer:

    As far as I know, there used to be a combination of Windows and Office that lead to people having a very weirdly rendering version of Helvetica installed on their computer. This lead, for example, to Ars Technica having Arial before Helvetica in their stylesheets for a long time. It’s not an actual use-case anymore nowadays, but I’m sure some people just keep it that way because they never re-educated themselves after the fact.

Thierry Blancpain at Quora Visit the source

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I think it is not a question of logic or a rule of web type design, as it is a design preference for the appearance of text on page, going from most desired or favored to I will live with it. In early HTML type choice was restricted. The best practice at one time was to specify Verdana, Arial, Times, Georgia. Seems weird today two san serifs then two serif fonts. But at the time Verdana was the typeface designed specifically for screen display, Verdana also being largely cross platform and common so it was called for first generally. This practice was from a time when user had only a limited choice of fonts that came with their computer. So you designed for and used fonts that your user had installed. It is a order of font contingency that was easy to adopt. Make it the way you want it.

Ted Baker

Ok, people use it because it is the default in some webpage builder software. The reason it is the default is that back in the day, Macs did not have Arial, only Helvetica. (and in general, Windows had Arial, not Helvetica). Most everyone has both these days, but because Arial was the default Windows sans-serif font for so long (and probably because it begins with "A"), that is the order on the list.  It is not easy to find a machine without Helvetica these days, either, so Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif reverting to Arial is also slim. But it is an old-time acknowledgement of the windows/mac divide, I think. I'm not sure about availability in Linux/Unix/etc. Only when you get to a proprietary font like "Helvetica Neue" are you likely to run into some significant percentage of people that don't have it.

Mariana Baca

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