Linux Font Equivalents for Verdana, Courier New & Georgia

Yihui Xie 2007-10-08

Screen resolution, web browser and operating system are three important factors which we need to take into consideration when making web pages. The first one affects the width, height and layout of a page; the second mainly affects the layout (e.g. different browsers interpret CSS in different ways); and the third plays a critical role in the appearance of a page – it determines which kind of fonts to use.

Therefore we should find some font equivalents between Windows and Linux in order that our web pages look similar under different operating systems. In fact there are three basic font families, namely: sans (or sans-serif), serif, and monospace, and “Verdana”, “Georgia (or Times New Roman)” and “Courier New” are three corresponding fonts we usually use under Windows, while in Linux we may use these three equivalents: “Bitstream Vera Sans”, “Bitstream Charter”, and “Bitstream Vera Sans Mono”.

These are three sample pages under Ubuntu:

And these are under Windows XP: