Type displayed on a computer screen magnified 200x. Each set of red, green and blue primary pixels makes up one square pixel.

Computer screens are different

For the expert typographer who has worked with print, the Internet presents a frustrating challenge. The computer screen displays its text at a much lower resolution than even the most basic laser printer. This means that elegant serifs and delicate letter strokes of printer fonts lose their definition on the screen.

Add to this the limited choices we have for typefaces on the Web. Because any font we use must reside on the user’s computer, we can choose only from those few fonts that come standard with most computers or software.

In this chapter, we will explore how type works on Web pages, and we will learn to use Cascading Style Sheets to control our text.

What follows assumes that you have worked through the beginning CSS tutorials on the W3Schools Web site.