Changing Default Course Font

[JenniferFavoros]

Hi! I have a teacher who wants to use "georgia" as the default font for his course. However, I am not sure how to help him. Is this possible If so, how?! I do not want to change the font for the entire school, just this teacher. Thanks!

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

@JenniferFavoros ...

Is this teacher only wanting the font to change in Canvas (and not other websites)?  If this teacher would be ok with having the font change in Canvas and possibly other websites, have you considered setting the fonts in the browser "Settings" page?  This way, you wouldn't have to change anything on the Canvas side.  For example, in my Edge browser (Windows 11 laptop), I can click on the three dots icon in the upper right corner of my browser, and then I select "Settings".  Then, on the screen that appears, I select "Appearance" on the left hand side, and then scroll all the way down to the bottom of the screen.  There is a section on "Fonts".  I can click on "Customize fonts".  I see the following...keeping in mind the note I've circled in yellow:

I'm not sure if this might be a solution for your teacher, but it might be something for him to consider or look into.  I imagine that the Chrome and FIrefox browsers have similar preference settings.

I hope this helps a bit.  Sing out if you have any questions...thanks!

[JenniferFavoros]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately, he wants to change it actually in Canvas so that the students see the changed font as well. 

[Chris_Hofer]

@JenniferFavoros ...

I don't know how you would be able to change the font for all content pages within a Canvas course all at one time.  (To be honest, I'm not sure if there would even be a way to change this with some back-end scripting.  That's a bit beyond my scope of knowledge.)  However, if you are editing content pages in your course, you can change the font page by page using the RCE (Rich Content Editor).  When editing your page, select all the text on the page (Ctrl + A), and then in the RCE select:

"Format" >> "Fonts" >> "Georgia"

If you look at the HTML code after changing the font on a Canvas page, you'd see something like:

<span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;">

I believe this means that if someone's computer did not have the Georgia font available, it would display the Palatino font instead.

Of course, as you've seen from my first reply, someone could choose to set their own font in the browser preferences/settings...which *may* override the teacher's preference (though not 100% sure of this).

Hope this helps a bit.  Good luck!

[SusanNiemeyer]

@JenniferFavoros  @Chris_Hofer 

Putting aside the whole question of how to set a new default font, I think you and your instructor need to go back and consider the accessibility of the Georgia font.

Our Canvas sites need to be as accessible as possible. Serif fonts like the Georgia font are simply not as accessible as san serif fonts like Lato, the default Canvas font. For students with learning or visual impairments, a serif font can make reading online texts much more challenging.

Bottom line: Just because a teacher likes the look of a serif font, it doesn't mean that it's the right choice for his students.

[JenniferFavoros]

Good point, thank you!

[JohnMilligan]

@SusanNiemeyer @JenniferFavoros @Chris_Hofer 

I understand the accessibility issues with serif vs sans serif fonts. However, I teach chemistry and the serif fonts can be useful for distinguishing between different possibilities for chemical formulas. In a sans serif font, like the default here, there is little, if any, difference between lower case l and upper case I. If I use a serif font like Georgia here, there is a clear difference between a lower case l and an upper case I. This makes a difference because you could have a chemical formula like CI_4, the _ is to indicate that the 4 is a subscript (this editor does not have super/subscripts), which is carbon tetraiodide. Without serifs the students have a difficult time distinguishing between CI_4 and Cl_4.

Cheers.