A web safe font are standard fonts available on MacOS and Windows computers. By using these fonts you can be sure that the font is always displayed correctly in any browser and on any device. The following fonts are web safe:
- Arial (sans-serif)
- Verdana (sans-serif)
- Helvetica (sans-serif)
- Tahoma (sans-serif)
- Trebuchet MS (sans-serif)
- Times New Roman (serif)
- Georgia (serif)
- Garamond (serif)
- Courier New (monospace)
- Brush Script MT (cursive)
An email can only use the fonts that the recipient has on his computer. With a web safe font you can be sure that a user has the font available. Purchased house style fonts are often unusable.
At Spotler we use a group of fonts in an email template: a row of different fonts that is checked from front to back. If the recipient has the first font, it will be used, otherwise the second and so on. It is therefore important to choose a web safe font in addition to your corporate style font.
This is what this might look like in the HTML of your email template:
style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
If the recipient has Open Sans as a font available on their computer, the email will be displayed in Open Sans. If he doesn't? Then the email will be displayed in Arial.
Do you want the email to look the same for every recipient? Then choose a web safe font.