YouTube fonts used for subtitles / closed captions

[Member joe…]

Hello Forum,

do you know what fonts YT does use for its subtitles / closed captions.  Some people say Araboto others say Noto and I have the impression none of them ....

 

Thank's in advance!

 

PS:

The screenshot it taken from:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RWf2BujEws

[Ralf Herrmann]

This is the suggested font stack when I use the website:

Quote

"YouTube Noto", Roboto, "Arial Unicode Ms", Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, "PT Sans Caption", sans-serif

 

[Member joe…]

Thanks for the feedback! For me all of them look very close to the "original", but not totally similar....

 

->This is the suggested font stack when I use the website

This sounds very technically to me. What does mean "when I use the website"?

 

 

 

[Member Bjø…]

This is going to be somewhat technical, but hey, it's the internet, which in itself is almost the very definition of "technical". "The stack" refers to (a part of) the active cascading style sheet (CSS) for the website (in this case youtube.com). Style sheets are used to style (duh) almost everything of what you can see on any given website (icluding, but not limited to, fonts). "The stack" just defines a fallback list of fonts that should be applied when available on any given system or device. For the browser (or app) to render a specific font, it (the font) needs to be accessible from somewhere, be it installed as a system font locally on the device or online through a server somewhere. There's a reason why Google Fonts are so popular to customize and «brand» websites today. The first font (from the top) on that list it (the browser/app/device) can access, it will use. Why anyone would put Arial above Helvetica (or anything, really) on a list like that is beyond me.

[Member joe…]

Thank's a lot Bjørn Edvard Torbo for the helpful feedback.

 

Does that mean. if none of the mentionel fonts (by Ralf) are installed locally, the "systems" tries to download a font from an external server?

 

 

Thank's in advance!

 

[Member Bjø…]

Well, it depends a little on the coding, but the fonts are “called”, not installed. So, they get temporarily stored in your browser’s cache, but they do not become part of your system. If the font specified in the code is already installed however, there’s no point for the browser to “call” anything, as it will just use the font that’s installed instead. So, by naming a ubiquitous font like Arial high in the stack, chances are that that’s what most people will see when they visit. 

[Member joe…]

Thanks to everyone for the helpful feedback! Ctrl + u does show the source code

of a HTML-website.