# Is there such a thing as a web-safe font?

Says <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_typography#Web-safe_fonts">Wikipedia</a>: "Web-safe fonts are computer fonts that may reasonably be expected to be present on a wide range of computer systems, and used by Web content authors to increase the likelihood that content displays in their chosen font."

Yes, reasonably expected. But that doesn't mean really expected. For example [this article](https://medium.com/emails-hteumeuleu/fonts-in-html-emails-2a554a24edfb) points out that even Arial and Times New Roman are not present on some Android distributions.

And, as I found out today (Thanks [Barry](https://www.tunetheweb.com/)!) working on this here web site, Courier New is not available on iOS. Let's repeat this again.

Courier.

Arial.

Times New stinkin' Roman!

If these are not "safe", *there is no such thing as a web-safe font*.

On this site I use a web font for headings and I had a local Courier fallback:

<pre class="prettyprint">
@font-face {
  font-family: fallbackCourier;
  src: local("Courier New Bold");
  ascent-override: 78%;
  descent-override: 29.68%;
  line-gap-override: 0%;
  size-adjust: 92.64%;
}
</pre>

Now I've added Menlo as a fallback too:

<pre class="prettyprint">
@font-face {
  font-family: fallbackMenlo;
  src: local("Menlo Regular");
  ascent-override: 77.2%;
  descent-override: 30.8%;
  line-gap-override: 0%;
  size-adjust: 92.34%;
}
</pre>

Note: "Menlo Regular". Because `local("Menlo")` doesn't work, at least not in Chrome. As with the <a href="https://calendar.perfplanet.com/2024/fabulous-font-face-fallbacks/#how_we_can_do_even_better_or_8220that8217s_enough_arial8221">Avenir debacle</a>, Menlo is a collection of fonts, not a font itself.

Here's a Font Book screenshot to to show the Menlo _ttc_ (_c_ as in _collection_)

![Menlo collection of fonts](/i/posts/menlo.png)

Time to lay this "web-safe" expression (that has been with us since forever) to sleep<i class="circle"><s></s></i>