week 11 and part of week 12

2026-03-27 09:21:45 -04:00
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+[!]
+[=title "Week 12: Fonts"]
+[=content-]
+
+<!-- this is a google fonts embed code: -->
+<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
+<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin>
+<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Roboto:ital,wght@0,100..900;1,100..900&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
+
+<p>
+	We've already talked briefly in class about fonts - we're going to do a deeper dive today.
+</p>
+<p>
+	Fonts are one of the most crucial styles on the internet. All text has a font!
+	The most impactful CSS property controlling fonts is <code>font-family</code>: this
+	is a deceptive property which can set either a <i>family</i> of fonts or
+	a <i>single</i> font. A family of fonts is a set of fonts that look similar:
+	for instance, <code>sans-serif</code> fonts. On this website, the default is <code>font-family: sans-serif;</code>:
+	you're probably more familiar with the universal default of <code>font-family: serif;</code> (set automatically
+	when you don't have your own - your websites most likely still use it!), which looks like
+	<span style="font-family: serif;">this</span>. Also useful in some areas is <code>font-family: monospace;</code>,
+	which I use for code - it looks like <span style="font-family: monospace;">this</span>.
+</p>
+<p>
+	Surprisingly, these look different across systems! There is no one universal <code>sans-serif</code> font;
+	instead, your operating system and your web browser pick something reasonable. This is generally fine,
+	and indeed helps compatibility (you don't have to guess which fonts are installed!), but does
+	mean pages look slightly different across platforms.
+</p>
+<p>
+	If you want to use a single specific font to ensure the webpage looks the same everywhere,
+	you also use <code>font-family</code>! Instead of one of the actual families (sans-serif, serif, monospace, etc),
+	you use a font's name. For instance, a common font available on the web is Arial - Arial is often
+	the <code>sans-serif</code> default. It looks like <span style="font-family: Arial;">this</span> (if that looks
+	the same as the rest of the text, that means your browser is already using it for <code>sans-serif</code>!)
+</p>
+<p>
+	W3Schools has an exhaustive list of CSS-safe web fonts at <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_websafe_fonts.php">this page</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+	What if we want more variation? It turns out there are a few properties for this.
+	The simplest is <code>font-size</code>: this sets the height of the characters in text.
+	You can set a font-size to any CSS length, but it's recommended to use specifically the <code>em</code> unit:
+	<code>1em</code> is always the default height of text, so <code>2em</code> is twice as large as default text, etc.
+	Importantly this is always the same on every platform: some browsers have different default heights
+	for text in <i>pixels</i>, but the height is always the same in <i>em</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+	For instance, <span style="font-size: 2em;">this is 2em text</span>.
+</p>
+<p>
+	We can also set the <code>font-weight</code>: this is actually what the <code>&lt;b&gt;</code> tag changes.
+	<span style="font-weight: bold;">for instance, this text has <code>font-weight: bold;</code></span>.
+</p>
+<p>
+	It's possible to add new fonts not in the CSS-safe list! The easiest way is with <a href="https://fonts.google.com/">Google Fonts</a>.
+	They give you <i>embed codes</i> - a few HTML tags that load the font into your page. You can then use the font in <i>font-family</i>
+	normally. For instance, after embedding Roboto, you'd be able to just <code>font-family: Roboto;</code>, which looks like
+	<span style="font-family: Roboto;">this</span> (use the web inspector to find the Google Fonts embed code for that!)
+</p>
+[/]
+[#template.html]