font-family attribute

Type:font
Inherited:yes
Used By:All text elements
Default:"Times"
See:font-style font-weight font marker-font-family name

Sets the current font face to be used for text. The value should be a name of a predefined font, or the name of a linked font.

Multiple font faces can be specified by separating them with commas. This has the effect of creating a "backup" font, so that if a required glyph is not found in the first font, the second font is used, (or the third, fourth etc.). This won't be as fast for long passages of text written in the backup font, but it is useful if you're not sure in advance which glyphs your text will require.

This creates an embedded font using the LINK tag, and then sets the document to use that font by default.

<head>
  <link name="myfont" type="font" subtype="TrueType" src="myfont.ttf">
  <style type="text/css">
    body { font-family:myfont; }
  </style>
</head>

This shows how to use a backup-font to save switching between fonts manually.

<p font-family="Times, Symbol">
The first letter of the greek alphabet is &alpha;
</p>