fontfamily

A font family is a group of related typefaces that share a common design. A family may include various styles such as weights (light, regular, bold), italics, and widths. In typography, names like Garamond, Helvetica, and Arial denote families; in digital typesetting, the term font-family also refers to a CSS property that selects fonts for rendering on a page.

In CSS, the font-family property accepts a prioritized list of family names and generic family keywords. The browser uses the first available font from the list. Font names containing spaces should be quoted. Examples: font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif.

Generic family keywords include serif, sans-serif, monospace, cursive, fantasy, and system-ui. These provide fallbacks when specific fonts are unavailable. Embedding custom fonts typically uses @font-face to declare a font family and link font files; the declared family name is then used in font-family.

Practical guidance includes keeping font stacks concise, preferring widely supported web-safe fonts for compatibility, and ensuring licensing permits web use. Consider language support and font metrics for readability. In typography, a font family is distinct from individual font faces—within a family, weights or styles are separate font faces.