Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

CSS CSS Basics (2014) Understanding Values and Units Font Properties

Posted by Victor Mercier
Victor Mercier
14,667 Points

Generic family name

I don’t really understand what is a generic font family and the difference between generic and specific font-family.

1 Answer

Unsubscribed User
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Unsubscribed User
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 33,900 Points

Hi Sebastien,

specific font families are fonts like "Times", "Courier", "Arial", etc.

Generic font families are drawback fonts like "serif", "sans-serif", "cursive", "fantasy", "monospace".

You put the generic font families at the end of your declaration (seperated by a comma), so that when the specific font is not available the are used as a drawback. Like this:

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

Does that make it clear?

Happy coding!

Nils

PS: You can upvote my post and/or mark as "best answer" (at the bottom of my post) if it helped you. :-)