Property Description

The font-family property sets the font for an element.

This property has the following syntax:

font-family: family-name|generic-family|initial|inherit;

The font-family property can use several font names as a "fallback" system. If the browser does not support the first specified font, it tries the next specified font.

There are two types of font family names:

• family-name - The name of a font-family, like "times", "courier", "arial", etc.
• generic-family - The name of a generic-family, like "serif", "sans-serif", "cursive", "fantasy", "monospace".

Note: Separate each font value with a comma.

Note: If a font name contains white-space, it must be quoted. Single quotes must be used when using the "style" attribute in HTML.

Property Values

Value	Description
family-name generic-family	A list of font family names and/or generic family names.
initial	Specifies that the value of the property should be set to the default value
inherit	Specifies that the value of the property should be inherited from the parent element

Examples

This example specifies the font for a paragraph.

p.sansserif {
  font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
}

p.serif {
  font-family:"Times New Roman",Times,serif;
}

<p class="sansserif">This is the Arial font.</p>
<p class="serif">This is the Times New Roman font.</p>

This produces the following result:

Browser Support

Chrome	Firefox	IE	Safari	Opera
1.0	1.0	5.5	1.0	7.0

Miscellaneous Information

Inherited:	Yes
Defined In:	CSS1
Default Value:	depends on the browser