I like the fonts available at Google Fonts but I’ve noted some sans-serif choices render markedly different when comparing Win XP (IE) to browser on a Mac (Saf, Cr, FF).
An example is Open Sans, which is a very nice (Lucida Grande-like) font on the Mac, but renders pretty bad on Win XP (IE).
Does anyone have experience with using these web fonts and any recommendations which look good regardless of platform?
Answer
Your question implies that one or other platform renders fonts “worse” than the other, but in fact it’s mostly just that Windows and Mac render fonts differently. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for this, although I’ve never come across one, but it’s an excellent example of why it is so important to verify page design on both platforms.
It’s not a matter of Google fonts. Standard web fonts also render differently on a Mac than on Linux or Windows, which can cause mayhem with things like headings and horizontal nav bars if you don’t take care.
I keep a Mac mostly for testing for cross-platform issues, and because I beta test on both platforms. Checking how a web page looks on a Mac (not relying, for example, solely on something Adobe’s “Browser Lab”) is always part of the design cycle.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : pepe , Answer Author : Alan Gilbertson