Font Stacks

Font Stacks is a Sass and Compass font-family library of common web-friendly font stacks.

Installation

1. gem install font-stacks
2. Add require 'font-stacks' in Compass's config.rb file
3. Then @import font-stacks

Usage

The usage is simple. Here are two examples:

Function Based Usage

// Long-form
.foo {
  font-family: font-family("Helvetica Neue");
}

// Shorthand
.foo {
  font-family: ff("Helvetica Neue");
}

// Resulting CSS
.foo {
  font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, "Liberation Sans", FreeSans, sans-serif;
}

Mixin Based Usage

// Long-form
.foo {
  @include font-family("Helvetica Neue");
}

// Shorthand
.foo {
  @include ff("Helvetica Neue");
}

// Resulting CSS
.foo {
  font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, "Liberation Sans", FreeSans, sans-serif;
}

As you can see, you simply pass the name of the font-stack to the font-family() function or its shorthand counterpart ff(), or to the font-family() mixin or its shorthand counterpart ff(). Simple.

Default Variables

If you'd like to set the default font-family, override the monospace font-family or set the default sans-serif or serif fonts, I have provided a few variables you can set.

Default Sans-serif

By default, $default-sans-serif is set to "Helvetica".

$default-sans-serif: "Helvetica"

You can set this variable to another available font, such as "Verdana". Here's an example:

$default-sans-serif: "Verdana"

Then you can simply pass "sans-serif" to the font-family() function or mixin to use your default sans-serif font stack.

.foo {
  +font-family(sans-serif)
}

Default Serif

By default, $default-serif is set to "Georgia".

$default-serif: "Georgia"

You can set this variable to another available font, such as "Times". Here's an example:

$default-serif: "Times"

Then you can simply pass "serif" to the font-family() function or mixin to use your default serif font stack.

.foo {
  +font-family(serif)
}

Default Monospace

The monospace font stack hasn't gotten as much thought or love yet, but by default, the monospace font stack is set to:

"DejaVu Sans Mono", Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, Courier, monospace

If you'd like to override this, set $default-monospace to the stack you'd prefer. For example:

$default-monospace: "Anonymous Pro", Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, Courier, monospace

You continue to pass "monospace" to the font-family() function or mixin to use your default monospace font stack.

.foo {
  +font-family(monospace)
}

Default font-family

By default $default-font-family is set to $default-sans-serif. This needs to have a value to always return a font stack, even if you mis-spell or something isn't right. I'd rather return your default instead of nothing.

$default-font-family: $default-sans-serif

Font Stacks

Serif

Baskerville, (88.60% on Mac, 49.10% on Windows)

Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", Garamond, "Times New Roman", serif

Big Caslon, (85.10% on Mac)

"Big Caslon", "Book Antiqua", "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, serif

Bodoni MT, (47.89% on Windows)

"Bodoni MT", Didot, "Didot LT STD", "Hoefler Text", Garamond, "Times New Roman", serif

Book Antiqua, (86.09% on Mac)

"Book Antiqua", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino LT STD", Georgia, serif

Cambria, (54.51% on Windows)

Cambria, Georgia, serif

Constantia, (53.81% on Windows)

Constantia, Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino LT STD", Georgia, serif

Didot, (87.72% on Mac)

Didot, "Didot LT STD", "Hoefler Text", Garamond, "Times New Roman", serif

Garamond, (23.84% on Mac, 86.24% on Windows)

Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif

Goudy Old Style, (51.30% on Windows)

"Goudy Old Style", Garamond, "Big Caslon", "Times New Roman", serif

Hoefler Text, (88.70% on Mac, 1.16% on Windows)

"Hoefler Text", "Baskerville Old Face", Garamond, "Times New Roman", serif

Lucida Bright, (64.90% on Mac, 33.84% on Windows, huge x-height)

"Lucida Bright", Georgia, serif

Palatino, (79.71% on Mac, 98.04% on Windows)

Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino LT STD", "Book Antiqua", Georgia, serif

Times New Roman ~ Times, (100% on Mac, 100% on Windows)

"Times New Roman", Times, serif

Sans-serif

Calibri, (54.76% on Windows)

Calibri, Candara, Segoe, "Segoe UI", Optima, Arial, sans-serif

Candara, (54.31% on Windows)

Candara, Calibri, Segoe, "Segoe UI", Optima, Arial, sans-serif

Franklin Gothic Medium, (97.89% on Windows)

"Franklin Gothic Medium", Arial, sans-serif

Futura, (91.01% on Mac)

Futura, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif

Geneva, (98.84% on Mac)

Geneva, Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif

Gill Sans, (91.52% on Mac, 51.74% on Windows)

"Gill Sans", "Gill Sans MT", Calibri, sans-serif

Helvetica Neue ~ Helvetica, (94.74% on Mac)

"Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, "Liberation Sans", FreeSans, sans-serif

Lucida Grande, (99.13% on Mac, 98.25% on Windows)

"Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif

Optima, (90.14% on Mac)

Optima, Segoe, "Segoe UI", Candara, Calibri, Arial, sans-serif

Segoe, (45.04% on Windows)

Segoe, "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif

Tahoma, (99.30% on Windows)

Tahoma, Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif

Trebuchet MS, (94.20% on Mac, 99% on Windows)

"Trebuchet MS", "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Tahoma, sans-serif

Verdana, (96.81% on Mac, 99.40% on Windows)

Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif

Monospace

Default Monospace font stack. Override by setting $default-monospace.

"DejaVu Sans Mono", Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, Courier, monospace

Credits and special thanks

Special thanks to Amrinder Sandhu for his research on web font stacks and article Revised Font Stacks. The refactor from this version as well as the additional support of the various web fonts is largely based on, and because of, his work.

Additional special thanks to my bud Nathan Smith for being an awesome sounding board and for helping me make some decisions that made this project all the more better. Thanks bro!

License

Copyright (c) 2011 Adam Stacoviak

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.