Default Fonts in Desktop & Mobile Operating Systems

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    What fonts can you assume Windows users will have? Mac users? And how about (gulp!) Linux & other UNIX users? Oh, & don't forget mobile users: iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), Android, & Windows Phone 7!

    One answer can be found at Code Style Font Sampler, which asks visitors to fill out a survey asking them about the fonts they have on their computers. You should take the results with a grain of salt, as the results are biased in favor of users who:

    1. visit the site,
    2. agree to take the survey, &
    3. are able to correctly determine the fonts on their computers

    Still, it provides some useful results. Go take a look & it'll give you some numbers you can work with.

    Various resources also exist that give web developers some hard numbers & lists they can use when determining the fonts available on various operating systems.

    Windows

    The following fonts have served as the default system fonts on Windows:

    Version Default System Font
    10 Segoe UI1
    8.1 Segoe UI1
    8 Segoe UI1
    7 Segoe UI1
    Vista Segoe UI1
    XP Tahoma2
    Me (Millennium Edition) MS Sans Serif3
    2000 Tahoma2
    98 Second Edition MS Sans Serif3
    98 MS Sans Serif3
    NT 4 MS Sans Serif3
    95 MS Sans Serif3
    NT 3.5 MS Sans Serif3
    NT 3.1 MS Sans Serif3
    3.1 MS Sans Serif3
    3 Helv3
    2 Helv3
    1 Helv3

    The number of typefaces & fonts Microsoft includes with Windows has been steadily increasing. First a table:

    Typefaces (New) Fonts (New)
    XP 29 136
    Vista 90 191
    7 111 (15) 257 (49)
    8 118 (6) 279 (17)
    8.1 124 (10) 322 (45)
    10 93 (10) 171 (45)
    10 (FoD) 84 (3) 269 (9)

    And now a detailed breakdown:

    For more info:

    Wikipedia’s “List of typefaces included with Microsoft Windows” lists fonts included with Windows 3.1–10.

    In addition to these, you should also check out Microsoft's “Fonts and Products”, which lists fonts supplied not only with Microsoft’s products, but also included in UNIX, Mac OS X, & Adobe products.

    Mac OS X/OS X/macOS

    Apple has a page detailing System Fonts for macOS & iOS.

    The following fonts have served as the default system fonts on macOS:

    Version Default System Font
    10.15
    10.14 Mojave San Francisco
    10.13 High Sierra San Francisco
    10.12 Sierra San Francisco
    10.11 El Capitan San Francisco
    10.10 Yosemite Helvetica Neue
    10.9 Mavericks Lucida Grande
    10.8 Mountain Lion Lucida Grande
    10.7 Lion Lucida Grande
    10.6 Snow Leopard Lucida Grande
    10.5 Leopard Lucida Grande
    10.4 Tiger Lucida Grande
    10.3 Panther Lucida Grande
    10.2 Jaguar Lucida Grande
    10.1 Puma Lucida Grande
    10.0 Cheetah Lucida Grande

    The number of typefaces & fonts Apple includes with Mac OS X/OS X/macOS has varied. First a table:

    Typefaces/Fonts
    Installed Available for Download Available in Documents or Apps
    10.3 Panther – / 74
    10.4 Tiger – / 117
    10.5 Leopard – / 160
    10.6 Snow Leopard – / 249
    10.7 Lion – / 225
    10.8 Mountain Lion – / 242
    10.9 Mavericks – / 507
    10.10 Yosemite ?
    10.11 El Capitan ?
    10.12 Sierra – / 473 – / 106 – / 158
    10.13 High Sierra 193 / 488 58 / 107 134 / 197
    10.14 Mojave 180 / 488 61 / 187 134 / 198

    And now a detailed breakdown:

    Some interesting info is at Unicode fonts for Macintosh OS X computers.

    UNIX & Linux

    There are hundreds of different UNIX variants out there (Linux itself is one, and there are hundreds of variants of Linux!), so saying with certainty what fonts are safe to assume are on any particular user's UNIX box is difficult. Fortunately, even though there are hundreds of UNIX flavors, there are only a few that make up the majority of desktop use.

    Fedora 29: 59 typefaces & 300 fonts installed28

    Ubuntu Server28

    For more, see Fonts supplied with UNIX / XFree and GhostScript.

    iOS

    The following fonts have served as the default system fonts on iOS:

    Version Default System Font
    12 San Francisco
    11 San Francisco
    10 San Francisco
    9 San Francisco
    8 Helvetica Neue
    7 Helvetica Neue
    6 Helvetica Neue
    5 Helvetica Neue
    4 Helvetica Neue
    iPhone OS 3 Helvetica
    iPhone OS 2 Helvetica
    iPhone OS 1 Helvetica

    When the iPad came out, it had more fonts on it than did the iPhone. Apple has since rectified that, & it's my guess that it will continue to make sure both devices have the same number of fonts on them.

    iOS Version Fonts
    iPhone iPad

    iPhone OS (iOS 1)29

    11 typefaces & 23 fonts (?)

    230

    11 typefaces & 33 fonts

    331

    20 typefaces & 55 fonts (10 new typefaces & 22 new fonts)

    432

    54 typefaces & 120 fonts (13 new typefaces & 28 new fonts)

    57

    5

    57 typefaces33

    60 typefaces & 161 fonts (6 new typefaces & 32 new fonts)34

    635

    206 fonts (58 downloadable as needed)

    7

    244 fonts (287 downloadable as needed)36

    10 new typefaces & 37 new fonts37

    8

    77 typefaces & TK fonts (2 new typefaces & 6 new fonts)38

    74 typefaces & 245 fonts39

    9

    75 typefaces & 248 fonts40

    1041

    75 typefaces & 248 fonts

    11

    12

    263 fonts installed

    ? fonts available for download

    ? available in documents or apps that use or request the font(s)

    Android

    Android is a bit more complicated, because while it doesn't include very many built in fonts, apps can bundle whatever fonts they want (note that this is now true for Apple's iOS as of version 4; however, since iOS also comes with over 50 built in fonts, most apps don't need to include their own).

    Android versions 1 through 3 (code names: Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, & Honeycomb) included only 3 fonts:

    You can read more about Droid:

    Starting with version 4 of Android (codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich), Google introduced a new standard font: Roboto. Here are some webpages about Roboto:

    Windows Phone 7

    Windows Phone 7 out of the box supports 16 fonts, including those in Core Fonts for the Web plus a few others. If you do not specify font-family, Segoe WP is used by default. However, like Android & iOS, developers can embed their own fonts in their apps if they desire.

    If you’re looking for my comments on Microsoft’s Core Fonts for the Web (Andalé Mono, Arial, Comic Sans, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, & Webdings) & Microsoft’s ClearType Font Collection (Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, Corbel), see My Thoughts on Fonts.


    1. Segoe 

    2. Tahoma (typeface) 

    3. Microsoft Sans Serif 

    4. Standard Windows Fonts 

    5. Fonts supplied with Windows XP 

    6. Fonts included with each version of Windows: Windows Vista Fonts 

    7. Lines counted from Windows 7 font list 

    8. Fonts included with Windows 7  

    9. Lines counted from Windows 8 font list  

    10. Lines counted from Windows 8.1 font list 

    11. See List of Installed Typefaces in Windows 10 (N. America) 

    12. Lines counted from Windows 10 font list 

    13. Lines counted from Windows 10 font list: Fonts included in Feature On Demand (FOD) packages 

    14. Lists found at Apple’s Mac OS X 10.3: Fonts list 

    15. Lists found at Apple’s Mac OS X 10.4: Fonts list 

    16. Lists found at Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5: Fonts list 

    17. List found at Microsoft’s Fonts supplied with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard 

    18. List found at Apple’s Mac OS X v10.6: Fonts list 

    19. List found at Apple’s OS X Lion: Fonts list 

    20. List found at Apple’s OS X: Fonts included with Mountain Lion 

    21. List found at Apple’s OS X: Fonts included with Mavericks 

    22. List found at Wikipedia’s List of typefaces included with macOS: New fonts added with OS X 10.10 Yosemite 

    23. List found at Wikipedia’s List of typefaces included with macOS: New fonts added with OS X 10.11 El Capitan 

    24. Lists found at Apple’s Fonts included with macOS Sierra 

    25. Lists found at Wikipedia’s List of typefaces included with macOS: New fonts added with macOS 10.12 Sierra 

    26. Lists found at Apple’s Fonts included with macOS High Sierra 

    27. Lists found at Apple’s Fonts included with macOS Mojave & System Fonts

    28. Result of fc-list command. 

    29. List from John Gruber’s iPhone Fonts

    30. List from iOS Font List, availability set to 2.0. 

    31. List from iOS Font List, availability set to 3.0. 

    32. List from iOS Font List, availability set to 4.0. 

    33. Lists from Apple’s iOS 5: Font list

    34. List from iOS Font List, availability set to 5.0. 

    35. Lists from Apple’s iOS 6: Font list

    36. Lists from Apple’s iOS 7: Font list

    37. List from jeradesign’s “List of fonts and font families added in iOS 7” 

    38. List from iOS Font List, availability set to 8.0. 

    39. List from Nick Cheng’s iOS 8 font list

    40. List from Nick Cheng’s iOS 9 font list

    41. List from Nick Cheng’s iOS 10 font list

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