Tell me more ×
Webmasters Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for pro webmasters. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite
1

I haven't come across any website that use monospace fonts as the base font for their websites. Why is that?

Does the website necessarily look bad when you use monospace?

share|improve this question

closed as not constructive by John Conde♦ Nov 21 '12 at 12:52

As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, see the FAQ for guidance.

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

It may look rather obsolete, probably that's why it is avoided, it was used rather heavily in the 90's along with animated GIFs and starred backgrounds and it didn't look very well.

Also it would be confusing since another monospaced: Courier New is used for preformatted text in <pre> blocks. So there is almost a convention that monospaced fonts are used for code and preformated text.

But I see no reason why not to use it, if you can find a good looking template, otherwise the above concerns might apply.

share|improve this answer
"it was used rather heavily in the 90's" - I don't think monospace text has ever been common place in website body copy?! – w3d Nov 21 '12 at 12:49
@w3d I agree that this is subjective experience since I didn't browsed all the Web, but if you ever knew geocities and other mainly personal sites some of them at least on my area of interest were using Courier New or other monospaced. I didn't used the right words with „rather heavily”, I meant rather heavily compared to today standards – Eduard Florinescu Nov 21 '12 at 13:12
up vote 1 down vote

I think the answer is simply that most humans will find blocks of monospaced text harder to read than text that is proportionally spaced.

share|improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.