Every line below is set in the font it names, with no safety net. If your computer has the font, you'll see it. If it doesn't, your browser quietly swaps in its default, and the line will look like plain old Times. Compare each one with the last line on the sheet, which is Times on purpose.

The odd word in each line is "Hamburgefonstiv." Type people have used it for generations to show off a face, because those few letters have most of the shapes that give a font away.

¶ Telling them apart. A few things to look for, if you want to train your eye:

• Arial or Helvetica? Look at the capital R. Arial's leg is a straight diagonal line; Helvetica's comes down nearly straight and curves at the foot. The tops of Arial's small t and f are cut off at a slant. Helvetica's are flat.
• Georgia's numbers go up and down like lowercase letters: the 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 hang below the line. That's old-fashioned book style and I love it, but it means Georgia is a poor choice for a table of prices.
• Verdana is wider than anything else here. If you switch a page from Arial to Verdana, it will run longer, so set it a size smaller.
• Courier and Courier New give every letter the same width, like a typewriter. That's why tutorials use them for code: the columns line up.

If you're on a Mac, write and tell me which lines looked like Times for you. Same if you're on a PC. I keep a tally, and it helps me tell clients what's safe.

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Charlotte Purvis · [email protected]
Last updated September 12, 1999