Font family (HTML)

The font family selection in (X)HTML, CSS, and derived systems specifies a list of prioritized fonts and generic family names; in conjunction with correlating font properties, this list determines the particular font face used to render characters. The family selection is available in two forms: in the deprecated (X)HTML <font>...</font> element with its face attribute, and in the CSS font-family property.

The CSS term font family is matched with the typographical term typeface, which is a grouping of fonts defined by shared design styles. A font is a particular set of glyphs (character shapes), differentiated from other fonts in the same family by additional properties such as stroke weight, slant, relative width, etc. The CSS term font face is matched with "font"; it is decided by a combination of the font family and the additional properties.

In both HTML and CSS, the list is separated by commas. To avoid unexpected results, the last font family on the font list should be one of the generic families which are by default always available. In the absence of a font being found, the web browser will use its default font, which may be a user-defined one. Depending on the web browser, a user can in fact override the font defined by the code writer. This may be for personal taste reasons, but may also be because of some physical limitation of the user, such as the need for a larger font size or the avoidance of certain colors.

In addition to local fonts, modern web browsers support linking custom font files directly by using the @font-face declaration. Once included, such fonts can be listed in the font-family property, alongside all local and fallback fonts.