CSS: The basic rules of typography

• Use standard fonts
• Use no more than two fonts per page
• Use an adequate font size
• Use sufficient line height
• Align text to the left

After reviewing most of the rules for working with text, you may find yourself asking how to apply them correctly. This question is extensive and warrants its own course.

Typography makes reading more comfortable and is also useful for design. Good design can be ruined by bad typography.

This lesson will describe a few basic rules that can be used to make pages comfortable to read.

Use standard fonts

The best choices when using fonts are standard fonts. For example, Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, Times New Roman, and so on. Most of these fonts are already on users' computers and are familiar and easy to read.

Avoid fancy fonts (like Comic Sans). As fun as they are, it's difficult to read large texts written with such fonts.

Use no more than two fonts per page

This will help the user navigate the page faster. The standard way is to use one font for headings and another for text.

Use an adequate font size

This concept is ambiguous, but you should not have main text with a font size smaller than 14 pixels. If the font size is smaller, reading from mobile devices will be torture.

Use sufficient line height

The most common line height is 150% of the font size. If the text is 14 pixels, it's a good idea to set the line height to at least 21 pixels.

Align text to the left

You should have all the text aligned to the center or the right edge. When reading such texts, your eyes will tire much faster because your eye loses the point of reference for where the text begins. Use non-standard alignment only for small sections of text (such as headings or quotations).

Instructions

Try applying the different rules of typography in the editor. There is no assignment in this lesson :) You can just press the check button