Why is Wikipedia showing up in Agency FB font?

[Liz]

On my work computer, Wikipedia shows up in a different font, I think it's Agency FB. It's really annoying to read because everything's very vertical and narrow. No other site seems different. I tried changing the font on the "internet options" menu but that didn't do anything-- it was already set on Times New Roman. Why is it doing this? How can I fix it? (I'm using Internet Explorer 7, by the way. Yes, my work computer is extremely lame, and no, I can't upgrade, it's literally impossible.)

[  Nihiltres  ]

Wikipedia makes only one specification regarding the font: In one of its CSS files, there's the following rule:
body {font-family: sans-serif;}

Thus by default, your browser will choose the default sans-serif font from your system. If you don't know what "sans-serif" or "serif" means, see < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif >. In this case, it seems as though for some reason, "Agency FB" is the default sans-serif font on your system.

I'm not particularly familiar with Internet Explorer, but I can think of a couple of options:
• See if you can install a more standard sans-serif font, like Arial (or better yet, Helvetica). If you already have Arial (likely on a Windows computer, since Arial is usually present as a cheap ripoff of the elegant sans-serif font Helvetica). If Internet Explorer prefers certain sans-serif fonts over others, it'll likely avoid "Agency FB" if you have something better.
• See if you can change the default sans-serif font for IE to something more readable. It would be somewhere in your Internet Options if it's available…

If neither of these works, there's always the brute-force solution:
1. Register a Wikipedia account and sign in. (< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Use...ype=signup >)
2. Go to < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/skin.css > once logged-in.
3. On the resulting page, add the following line:

body {font-family: "Times New Roman", "Helvetica", "Arial", serif, sans-serif}

(You can change/add/remove fonts used in the list if you want, just try to keep the format the same)
4. Save the page, then bypass your cache (< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BYPASS >)

The default font should then be set to Times New Roman, or whatever font you choose. The list picks fonts as they're available: if "Times New Roman" is not available, the browser will look for "Helvetica" next, then "Arial". If none of the named fonts are available, the browser will go through its own list of serif fonts, and try to pick one of those. Since Times New Roman is fairly readable, it's the font I've made default in this example. Note that Wikipedia might look a little odd with a serif font—but it should look less odd than with this "Agency FB" you mention.