This is beneficial in a sense that if a user's browser doesn't have the first font in the family (Arial), it defaults to the next font in the family (Helvetica). If a user doesn't have that font either, the browser simply defaults to the next best sans-serif font, the last option within our family. With all this said, you're not completely out of luck in terms of font faces. For instance, if you're working in an Intranet environment where everyone's computer within your organization is configured exactly the same, go ahead and use your own font faces. Since the font you'll likely choose will be loaded on the users' computers within your organization, everything should function smoothly. You can create your own font families by choosing Font, Edit Font List, which opens the Edit Font List dialog similar to Figure 3.17. Figure 3.17. The Edit Font List dialog allows you to create your own font families.   The Edit font List dialog is divided into three panes. The first pane, Font List, simply shows you a list of currently configured font families. The second pane, Available Fonts, shows you a list of all fonts installed on your computer. You can move available fonts into the third pane, Chosen Fonts, to create a font family. To do this, just find fonts that you want to use within the Available Fonts pane and click the twin arrows button to move them over to the Chosen Fonts pane. You'll see the font family build in the Font List pane as you add them to the Chosen Fonts pane. When you've finished configuring your font family, click OK. Now look in the Font menu in the Properties Inspector; the new font family appears in the list. TIP Again, unless you're working in an Intranet environment where you know everyone has the same font installed, you're better off simply using the default font families referenced in Dreamweaver.   Font Sizes Working with font sizes is another great challenge in website development. With all the different factors of platforms and web browsers, managing the size of text is no easy task. Remember that the end user ultimately determines how large or how small fonts appear in the browser. To prove this point, open your browser (I'll open IE) and select View, Text Size. Of course, the browser defaults to medium but you're entirely free to change the default size of text on the page. For this reason, Dreamweaver provides both absolute and relative text sizes, available from the Size drop-down menu in the Properties Inspector just to the right of the Font drop-down menu. The options in the Size drop-down menu don't resemble point or pixel sizes, instead they refer to HTML sizes. The default size of the page is set as an absolute value of 3, but you can select from a list of absolute or relative sizes for your page. The absolute size is a straight number from 1 through 7, with 1 being the smallest and 7 being the largest. With relative sizes, you can either add to or subtract from the default font size of the page. For example, because the default font is 3, you can add to that value by choosing +1, and the type will appear as an equivalent to an absolute size 4. To demonstrate this, try experimenting with the various sizes in a new blank page. As you can see from the matrix shown in Figure 3.18, the default font size is 3. However, choosing the relative value of +1 displays the equivalent of the absolute value 4. The same concept holds true for the relative value 1. In this case, 1 displays similar to the absolute value of 2. Figure 3.18. Use relative font sizes to scale up or down from the default font size. [View full size image]