font

You will probably use font properties frequently in your style sheets, so the W3C specifies (and Internet Explorer supports) a shortcut notation. Instead of setting the properties separately, you can combine them into one property called font.

So, instead of:

 p {font-style: italic;
    line-height: 20pt;
    font-weight: bold;
    font-size: 12pt;
    font-family: Times,serif;}

You can simply use:

 p {font: italic bold 12pt/20pt Times, serif;}

Notes:

• You can miss out most font options but you must always specify a size and at least one font name
• The order of properties is significant and is as follows: font-style, font-variant, font-weight, font-size and font-family. The list of font families always comes last. It can include a comma-separated list of family names
• You may include a line height value (to define the line spacing). Adding a slash ("/") after the font size and then enter the line height e.g. 12pt/14pt
• You can't set font-stretch or font-size-adjust with the font property

In CSS 2.0, you can also apply a font that matches the settings on the user’s PC for any of the following:

• Caption. Use the same font as objects with captions (buttons, labels, drop-downs and so on)
• Icon. Use the same font as icon labels
• Menu. Use the same font as menus (drop-down menus and menu lists)
• Messagebox. Use the same font as dialog boxes
• Smallcaption. Use the same font as small controls
• Statusbar. Use the same font as the window status bars

For example, if icons use Arial 10pt as a label, set the font property to a value of icon to match this.