Fontconfig generic font families

The CSS classification system currently used by fontconfig is the following:

   1. a font that can not be used to write long “professional” texts is a 

      “fantasy” font.

   2. otherwise:

         1. if it's monospaced, it's a “monospace” font,

         2. if it's variable-width and:

               1. it simulates hand-written text, it's a “cursive” font,

               2. it uses serifs¹, it's a “serif” font,

               3. it does not use serifs, it's a “sans-serif” font, 

         3. otherwise, are you really sure it's not a “fantasy” font? 

Some font authors also make their fonts self-categorize, thus checking the 

font metadata in fontforge may provide another hint². However, sometimes this 

metadata is missing or plain false, so do not rely on it 100%. 

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif

² <CTRL> + <SHIFT> + <F> then check the OS/2 tab.

© 2009 Nicolas Mailhot <nim at fedoraproject dot org>