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Common Fonts to All Versions of Windows & Mac Equivalents

  • The names in grey are the generic family of each font.
  • In some cases the Mac equivalent is the same font, since Mac OS X also includes some of the fonts shipped with Windows.
  • The notes at the bottom contains specific information about some of the fonts.

Windows fonts / Mac fonts / Font family
Normal Style Bold Style
Arial, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif Arial, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
Arial Black, Arial Black, Gadget, sans-serif Arial Black, Arial Black, Gadget, sans-serif
Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans MS5, cursive Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans MS5, cursive
Courier New, Courier New, Courier6, monospace Courier New, Courier New, Courier6, monospace
Georgia1, Georgia, serif Georgia1, Georgia, serif
Impact, Impact5, Charcoal6, sans-serif Impact, Impact5, Charcoal6, sans-serif
Lucida Console, Monaco5, monospace Lucida Console, Monaco5, monospace
Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande, sans-serif Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande, sans-serif
Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua3, Palatino6, serif Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua3, Palatino6, serif
Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif
Times New Roman, Times, serif Times New Roman, Times, serif
Trebuchet MS1, Helvetica, sans-serif Trebuchet MS1, Helvetica, sans-serif
Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif
Symbol, Symbol (Symbol2, Symbol2) Symbol, Symbol (Symbol2, Symbol2)
Webdings, Webdings (Webdings2, Webdings2) Webdings, Webdings (Webdings2, Webdings2)
Wingdings, Zapf Dingbats (Wingdings2, Zapf Dingbats2) Wingdings, Zapf Dingbats (Wingdings2, Zapf Dingbats2)
MS Sans Serif4, Geneva, sans-serif MS Sans Serif4, Geneva, sans-serif
MS Serif4, New York6, serif MS Serif4, New York6, serif

1 Georgia and Trebuchet MS are bundled with Windows 2000/XP and they are also included in the IE font pack (and bundled with other MS applications), so they are quite common in Windows 98 systems.

2 Symbolic fonts are only displayed in Internet Explorer, in other browsers a font substitute is used instead (although the Symbol font does work in Opera and the Webdings works in Safari).

3 Book Antiqua is almost exactly the same font that Palatino Linotype, Palatino Linotype is included in Windows 2000/XP while Book Antiqua was bundled with Windows 98.

4 These fonts are not TrueType fonts but bitmap fonts, so they won't look well when using some font sizes (they are designed for 8, 10, 12, 14, 18 and 24 point sizes at 96 DPI).

5 These fonts work in Safari but only when using the normal font style, and not with bold or italic styles. Comic Sans MS works in bold but not in italic. Other Mac browsers seems to emulate properly the styles not provided by the font.

6 These fonts are present in Mac OS X only if Classic is installed.

How the fonts look in different systems and browsers

Note that while the ClearType smoothing is applied always, the basic font smoothing of Windows 98/2000/XP is applied only to certain font sizes. That sizes can be specified by the font designer, but usually they are in the ranges of 0-6 and 14+ points (pt).

The Mac font list was obtained from the Browser Safe Fonts PDF of webbedEnvironments and from the List of fonts in Mac OS X of the Wikipedia.