Is Garamond really a web safe font?

Question

Is Garamond really web safe? Should I go ahead and use it? I know its not there in XP(Georgia is the fallback), however, what about other operating systems? Is it present in ma

Answer 1

What's your definition of web safe font?

If you consider a font being web safe when it is rendered on all the computers the same way, the answer is no - Garamond is not, and no other font is.

You can embed Garamond using various techniques (eg. javascript font API), but it will never be the same on all of the computers.

You can try to create a web safe font stack, considering font parameters, e.g. x-height. Something like this should work fine:

Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", Times, serif;

Anything you choose, remember that Garamond has very small x-height, so it is ok for print, but not very legible on screen. If you decide to use it, use bigger font-size.

Edit

Saying JavaScript API I mean importing fonts using APIs like Google Font API, TypeKit or other solutions that do not work when JS is off. Then you still need font stack, so importing won't help in this case.