`<generic-family>` CSS type

The <generic-family> CSS data type represents the keyword values for generic font families used in the font shorthand and font-family longhand properties. The <generic-family> represents one or more locally-installed fonts belonging to that category of fonts.

Syntax

Values

The <generic-family> enumerated type is specified using one of the values listed below:

serif: A serif is a small line or stroke attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter. In serif fonts, glyphs have finishing strokes, flared or tapering ends. Examples include Lucida Bright, Lucida Fax, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Palladio, and URW Palladio.
sans-serif: A font without serifs; glyphs have plain stroke endings, without ornamentation. Example sans-serif fonts include Open Sans, Fira Sans, Lucida Sans, Lucida Sans Unicode, Trebuchet MS, Liberation Sans, and Nimbus Sans L.
monospace: All glyphs have the same fixed width. Example monospace fonts include Fira Mono, DejaVu Sans Mono, Menlo, Consolas, Liberation Mono, Monaco, and Lucida Console.
cursive: Glyphs in cursive fonts generally use a cursive script or other handwriting style, and the result looks more like handwritten pen or brush writing than printed typesetting. CSS uses the term "cursive" to apply to a font for any script, including those that do not have joining strokes. Example cursive fonts include Brush Script MT, Brush Script Std, Lucida Calligraphy, Lucida Handwriting, and Apple Chancery.
fantasy: Fantasy fonts are primarily decorative fonts that contain playful representations of characters. Example fantasy fonts include Papyrus, Herculanum, Party LET, Curlz MT, Harrington, and Comic Sans MS.
system-ui: Glyphs are taken from the default user interface font on a given platform. Because typographic traditions vary widely across the world, this generic family is provided for typefaces that don't map cleanly into the others.

Note: As the name implies, system-ui is intended to make UI elements look like native apps, and not for typesetting large paragraphs of text. It may cause the displayed typeface to be undesirable for some users—for example, the default Windows CJK font may render Latin scripts poorly, and the lang attribute may not affect the displayed font. Some operating systems do not allow customizing system-ui, while browsers generally allow customizing the sans-serif font family. For large paragraphs, use sans-serif or some other non-UI font family instead.
ui-serif: The default user interface serif font. See the definition of serif above.
ui-sans-serif: The default user interface sans-serif font. See the definition of sans-serif above.
ui-monospace: The default user interface monospace font. See the definition of monospace above.
ui-rounded: The default user interface font that has rounded features.
math: Fonts for displaying mathematical expressions, for example superscript and subscript, brackets that cross several lines, nesting expressions, and double-struck glyphs with distinct meanings.
fangsong: A particular style of Chinese characters that are between serif-style Song and cursive-style Kai forms. This style is often used for government documents.

Formal syntax

<generic-family> = serif | sans-serif | monospace | cursive | fantasy | system-ui | ui-serif | ui-sans-serif | ui-monospace | ui-rounded | math | fangsong

Examples

This example demos several of the <generic-family> enumerated values for the font-family property.

HTML

<ul>
  <li class="serif">serif</li>
  <li class="sans-serif">sans-serif</li>
  <li class="monospace">monospace</li>
  <li class="cursive">cursive</li>
  <li class="fantasy">fantasy</li>
  <li class="system-ui">system-ui</li>
</ul>

CSS

ul {
  font-size: 1.5rem;
  line-height: 2;
}
.serif {
  font-family: serif;
}
.sans-serif {
  font-family: sans-serif;
}
.monospace {
  font-family: monospace;
}
.cursive {
  font-family: cursive;
}
.fantasy {
  font-family: fantasy;
}
.system-ui {
  font-family: system-ui;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Fonts Module Level 4 # generic-font-families