CSS: font-family fallbacks

[ElMiko]

is there any way to make a font-family fallback a font-style?

for example: I would like text to be in "Courier", but if it can't be displayed as "Courier", then I'd like it to display whatever font it does use in italics.

[DaleDe]

Try: font-family:"Courier New", Courier, monospace;

The fallback is via a comma separated list with the last entry as generic as possible.

[ElMiko]

right, I understand how the format works for creating font-family fallbacks. But my question was can i make a font-style a fallback for a font-family. The example you gave is for monospace font-families as fallbacks for a monospace font. As I said (almost verbatim), I want the fallback for "Courier" to be whatever font the device renders, but in italics.

[Keroberos]

Sounds like you want it to be in non italic Courier if the font is available and in an italic font if not. The way I would do it is to embed a non italic font in the epub (I don't think you can legally embed Courier though, you might have to find a similar font that you can embed), then use this CSS,

@font-face {
	font-family: "somefont";
	src: url(../Fonts/somefont.otf);	
}
.somefont {
	font-family: "somefont";
	font-style: italic;
}

With this styling in your XHTML,

<span class="somefont">Text</span>

Then if the reader doesn't support the embedded font it displays in italics of the default font.

[ElMiko]

Keroberos, you exactly articulated my intent, thank you! Unfortunately, it seems that your answer is: No, you can't use styles as a fallback. Oh well, it's no great loss.