How do I set 'semi-bold' font via CSS? Font-weight of 600 doesn't make it look like the semi-bold I see in my Photoshop file

Css Problem Overview

I'm doing a Photoshop-to-XHTML conversion, and the website designer used the Myriad Pro Semi-bold font which looks good in the photoshop file, but when I try the semi-bold option in CSS, it looks pretty much like a normal bold font, which is too bold for my purpose. Is there a way to achieve a nicer looking semi-bold font in HTML and CSS or am I just stuck with 'font-weight: 600;'?

Css Solutions

Solution 1 - Css

In CSS, for the font-weight property, the value: normal defaults to the numeric value 400, and bold to 700.

If you want to specify other weights, you need to give the number value. That number value needs to be supported for the font family that you are using.

For example you would define semi-bold like this:

font-weight: 600;

Here an JSFiddle using 'Open Sans' font family, loaded with the above weights.

Solution 2 - Css

The practical way is setting font-family to a value that is the specific name of the semibold version, such as

font-family: "Myriad pro Semibold"

if that’s the name. (Personally I use my own font listing tool, which runs on Internet Explorer only to see the fonts in my system by names as usable in CSS.)

In this approach, font-weight is not needed (and probably better not set).

Web browsers have been poor at implementing font weights by the book: they largely cannot find the specific weight version, except bold. The workaround is to include the information in the font family name, even though this is not how things are supposed to work.

Testing with Segoe UI, which often exists in different font weight versions on Windows systems, I was able to make Internet Explorer 9 select the proper version when using the logical approach (of using the font family name Segoe UI and different font-weight values), but it failed on Firefox 9 and Chrome 16 (only normal and bold work). On all of these browsers, for example, setting font-family: Segoe UI Light works OK.

Solution 3 - Css

For me the following works good. Just add it. You can edit it as per your requirement. This is just a nice trick I use.

text-shadow : 0 0 0 #your-font-color;

Solution 4 - Css

font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-weight: 600; important to change to a different font-family

Solution 5 - Css

By mid-2016 the Chromium engine (v53) supports just 3 emphasis styles:

Plain text, bold, and super-bold...

 <div style="font:normal 400 14px Arial;">Testing</div>

 <div style="font:normal 700 14px Arial;">Testing</div>

 <div style="font:normal 800 14px Arial;">Testing</div>

Solution 6 - Css

Select fonts by specifying the weights you need on load

Font-families consist of several distinct fonts

For example, extra-bold will make the font look quite different in say, Photoshop, because you're selecting a different font. The same applies to italic font, which can look very different indeed. Setting font-weight:800 or font-style:italic may result in just a best effort of the web browser to fatten or slant the normal font in the family.

Even though you're loading a font-family, you must specify the weights and styles you need for some web browsers to let you select a different font in the family with font-weight and font-style.

Example

This example specifies the light, normal, normal italic, bold, and extra-bold fonts in the font family Open Sans:

<html>
  <head>
    <link rel="stylesheet"
          href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:100,400,400i,600,800">
    <style>
      body {
        font-family: 'Open Sans', serif;
        font-size: 48px;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>    
    <div style="font-weight:400">Didn't work with all the fonts</div>
	  <div style="font-weight:600">Didn't work with all the fonts</div>
	  <div style="font-weight:800">Didn't work with all the fonts</div>
  </body>
</html>

Reference

(Quora warning, please remove if not allowed.)

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-make-Open-Sans-extra-bold-once-imported-from-Google-Fonts

Testing

Tested working in Firefox 66.0.3 on Mac and Firefox 36.0.1 in Windows.

Non-Google fonts

Other fonts must be uploaded to the server, style and weight specified by their individual names.

System fonts

Assume nothing, font-wise, about what device is visiting your website or what fonts are installed on its OS.

(You may use the fall-backs of serif and sans-serif, but you will get the font mapped to these by the individual web browser version used, within the fonts available in the OS version it's running under, and not what you designed.)

Testing should be done with the font temporarily uninstalled from your system, to be sure that your design is in effect.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Simon Suh	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Css	Jesús Carrera	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Css	Jukka K. Korpela	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Css	Raj	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Css	Martian2049	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Css	SomeUser	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Css	Henrik Erlandsson	View Answer on Stackoverflow