How to Customize Typography with CSS ?

Last Updated : 05 Jun, 2023

Typography is an essential aspect of website design that can greatly affect the user experience. By customizing your site’s typography with CSS, you can create a unique and visually appealing design that effectively communicates your message. Before moving to the section on how to customize Typography, let us first understand the importance of Web Development.

Importance of Typography in Web Development:

Legibility: Good typography ensures that text is easy to read and understand, which is critical for communicating effectively with users.
Branding: Typography can be used to reinforce a brand’s visual identity, creating a recognizable and memorable impression on users.
User Experience: The typography used on a website can impact how users feel about the site, and can even affect how they navigate and interact with it.
Accessibility: Clear and legible typography is essential for users with visual impairments or dyslexia, ensuring that all users can access and engage with the content on the website.
Hierarchy: Proper use of typography can help create a clear hierarchy of information, making it easier for users to navigate and find what they need.

In this article, we’ll explore some best practices for customizing typography with CSS, and these are:

Font Selection
Font Sizing
Line Height

Font Selection: Choosing the right font for your website is a critical aspect of typography customization. There are many font options available, including system fonts, Google Fonts, and custom fonts.

System Fonts: System fonts are the fonts already installed on the user’s computer or device.
Google Fonts: These are web fonts that are free to use and easy to integrate into your site.
Custom Fonts: Custom fonts can be added to your site by uploading the font files and using @font-face rules in your CSS.

Here is a list of some commonly used font-family:

Arial, sans-serif.
Times New Roman, serif.
Open Sans, sans-serif.
Roboto, sans-serif.
Montserrat, sans-serif

Example of how we can use Google Fonts: You can visit fonts.google.com and choose a font with multiple weights and styles for design flexibility. Once you select the required font, copy its code snippet and add it to your website’s CSS file.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html> 
<html lang="en"> 
  
<head> 
    <meta charset="UTF-8" /> 
    <link
        href= 
"https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Great+Vibes&family=Inter:wght@400;500;700&family=Poppins:wght@200;300;400;500;600&family=Roboto:wght@300;400;700&display=swap"
        rel="stylesheet" /> 
    <style> 
        body { 
            font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; 
        } 
    </style> 
</head> 
  
<body> 
    <h1>This is a Heading!</h1> 
    <p>This is a paragraph...</p> 
</body> 
  
</html>

Output:

Font Sizing: This is another essential aspect of typography customization. The size of your font should be legible and appropriate for your content. Using relative units such as em, rem, or % can help ensure that font sizes scale correctly across different devices and screen sizes.

Example:

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html> 
<html lang="en"> 
  
<head> 
    <meta charset="UTF-8" /> 
    <style> 
        /* Set the font size for the main heading */ 
        h1 { 
            font-size: 2.5em; 
            /* 2.5 times the base font size (40px) */ 
        } 
  
        /* Set the font size for the body text */ 
        .size1 { 
            font-size: 2em; 
            /* 2 times the base font size (16px) */ 
        } 
  
        .size2 { 
            font-size: 1em; 
            /* 1 times the base font size (16px) */ 
        } 
    </style> 
</head> 
  
<body> 
    <h1>This is a Heading!</h1> 
    <p class="size1">This is a first paragraph...</p> 
    <p class="size2">This is a first paragraph...</p> 
</body> 
</html>

Output:

Line-Height: refers to the space between lines of text and can greatly affect the readability of your content. The ideal line height is typically around 1.5 times the font size. Using unitless values for line-height can help ensure that your line height scales correctly across different font sizes.

The common range of line-height:

Body text: 1.4 to 1.6.
Headings: 1.2 to 1.4

Example:

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html> 
<html lang="en"> 
  
<head> 
    <meta charset="UTF-8" /> 
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" /> 
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" /> 
    <style> 
        .text1 { 
            line-height: 1.2; 
        } 
  
        .text2 { 
            line-height: 1.8; 
        } 
    </style> 
</head> 
  
<body> 
    <h1>This is a heading!</h1> 
    <p class="text1"> 
        A Computer Science portal for geeks. It contains  
          well written, well thought and well explained computer  
          science and programming articles 
    </p> 
    <p class="text2"> 
        A Computer Science portal for geeks. It contains  
          well written, well thought and well explained computer  
          science and programming articles 
    </p> 
</body> 
</html>