A condensed font is a narrow version of a standard font in a font family. It usually has "condensed", "compressed" or "narrow" in the name, for example Arial Condensed. This font is the same height as the standard Arial font, but it is much narrower, meaning that more characters can fit on a line of text.
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Some fonts that are not part of a family are also called condensed when they are much taller than they are wide. ITC Roswell is a good example of this. Although there are several versions of Roswell, they are all condensed and dramatically taller than they are wide.
Condensed fonts exist to save space. Their narrow width allows more characters to fit into a line, heading, paragraph, column, or page. The downside is that condensed fonts are harder to read because the letters are closer together than in standard fonts.
Condensed typefaces work best in small doses, such as for subheadings, captions, and quotations, especially when combined with standard fonts in the same font family. They can also work for decorative headings and text graphics, where individual characters are deliberately spaced out; the letters are tall and thin, but not cramped.
