Which font should I use?

what font size is best for different text

[uk_designer]

Hi all I have redesigned my website with the aid of some help along the way. However I am slightly undecided about what fonts/sizes I should use for different areas of the page. I realise that it's best to stick to 3 different fonts at the most and also keep font face/size consistent as well. I've also read up and been told about the I.E. and N.N. compatilbity problems and font issues within the browsers e.g. Arial and size 3 font should be used for general text.

I do however have several differetn elements that have different improtance attached. For instance, general text, news text informing customers about site updates etc (I believe this should be smaller), item codes and prices, headings etc.

How do people go about setting fonts/sizes for the various text parts of a page?

[jbinbpt]

Use CSS to identify the important sections.
H1 for Most Important like title
H2 for subsections like paragraph headings
H3 for highlighted words or thoughts.
body text size of 3 is good.

Keep to an easily read font family. Even 3 different fonts might be too much

[jbinbpt]

I noticed an interesting pattern this weekend. I was helping a friend clean their two family computers of spyware. Both setups had basically the same hardware, but they were using different screen resolutions and they had adjusted the text size to compensate.
The point is that you can only present the best font/size presentation that you can and then don't worry too much about it. The user will mess with it, given the chance.

[uk_designer]

thanks jbinbpt yes for some areas I have used h1 and h2 but for others I've used size 2,3 etc. I'm using dreamweaver to do my editing. The thing was that some text for updates doesn't need to be as big as general text and this doesn't need to be as large as big headings. But then I have text for item descriptions which I want to be different from item price, code etc.

The thing is though that like you said, I can't use a lot of text sizes or else it will be too confusing so possibly keeping the item codes and the updates text the same size? I've currently got main heading @ h1, general page text @ h5 on the homepage, updates text as h6, item descriptions @ size 3, item prices, codes @ size 2

[driven_snow]

Just a somewhat off topic note, Verdana is prettier than arial any day .. .and it resizes better IMO.

: )

[danny]

body text size of 3 is good

Text size 3 is really hard for me to read - my default font size is 5, which given my display setup is nicely readable. People like me can resize text for specific pages/sites, of course, but that's still an extra barrier.

My rule is: any extended block of text should not have a size specified - ie, should default to the user's default font size. You don't know what video resolution, monitor, etc the user has - but they do, so let their chosen default stand.

[contentmaster]

It's best to use a maximum of 2-3 different fonts.....i always use slightly bigger size text for headings etc....but i have found arial to be the best choice followed by verdana....