Fonts: Lock san-serif to arial?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul D.Smith
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Paul D.Smith

All,

I know enough about HTML to know that there is a "pseudo-font" called
"san-serif" which browsers interpret as "choose any sans serif font that you
think is suitable. However this is causing me a problem.

On most Windows boxes, the font chosen is Arial - fine. But my wife has
installed a large number of additional fonts as part of her work and now IE
picks one of these. And when "sans-serif x-small" is specified in HTML, the
result is a completely unreadable screen.

I _CANNOT_ remove these additional fonts, so is there anyway to "lock" IE
into selecting Arial when it sees "sans-serif"?

BTW, I've currently set a workaround to force IE to ignore the fonts
completely (one of the accessibility settings for the poor-sighted) but I'd
rather have a better long term solution if possible.

Thanks,
Paul DS.
 
Paul said:
All,

I know enough about HTML to know that there is a "pseudo-font" called
"san-serif" which browsers interpret as "choose any sans serif font that you
think is suitable. However this is causing me a problem.

On most Windows boxes, the font chosen is Arial - fine. But my wife has
installed a large number of additional fonts as part of her work and now IE
picks one of these. And when "sans-serif x-small" is specified in HTML, the
result is a completely unreadable screen.

I _CANNOT_ remove these additional fonts, so is there anyway to "lock" IE
into selecting Arial when it sees "sans-serif"?

BTW, I've currently set a workaround to force IE to ignore the fonts
completely (one of the accessibility settings for the poor-sighted) but I'd
rather have a better long term solution if possible.
Click to expand...

Try this. Determine which font IE is picking. Uninstall this font
WITHOUT deleting the font files. Run IE. IE will pick a different
font, probably Arial. Re-install the font you un-installed.

Alternately, switch to Firefox or Opera, both of which enable you to
specify the fonts you prefer.
 
Try this. Determine which font IE is picking. Uninstall this font
WITHOUT deleting the font files. Run IE. IE will pick a different
font, probably Arial. Re-install the font you un-installed.
Click to expand...

Umm. Surely you're not suggesting that before every IE usage I install all
the fonts that my wife installed, and the reinstall them afterwards?
Alternately, switch to Firefox or Opera, both of which enable you to
specify the fonts you prefer.
Click to expand...

Except this is an IE newsgroup and I'm looking for a solution for IE :-(.

Paul DS.
 
Paul said:
Umm. Surely you're not suggesting that before every IE usage I install all
the fonts that my wife installed, and the reinstall them afterwards?
Click to expand...

You don't have to uninstall ALL your wife's fonts: just the one that IE
is picking.

Once IE has picked Arial as its sans-serif font, it should stick.
 
You don't have to uninstall ALL your wife's fonts: just the one that IE
is picking.
Click to expand...

I have tried this and it then picked one of the other new sans-serif fonts.
I could be removing fonts for a long time :-(.
Once IE has picked Arial as its sans-serif font, it should stick.
Click to expand...

Stick for how long? It used to work until these new fonts were installed so
my guess was that on each invocation, IE selects a new sans-serif font - is
this not the case?

Paul DS
 
Paul said:
I have tried this and it then picked one of the other new sans-serif fonts.
I could be removing fonts for a long time :-(.
Perhaps.


Stick for how long? It used to work until these new fonts were installed so
my guess was that on each invocation, IE selects a new sans-serif font - is
this not the case?
Click to expand...

My experience is that IE6 normally sticks with its choice indefinitely,
but that sometimes -- very rarely -- it forgets and makes another
choice. I have used IE6 since it became available, and it forgot only
once. That is when I invented the work-around I have described to you.

IE should of course do what Firefox and Opera do, i.e. let the user
decide, but alas it does not, and I have seen no indication that IE7
will. Sigh.
 
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