A Font Feud Brews After State Dept. Picks Calibri Over Times New Roman (washingtonpost.com) 151
The U.S. State Department is going sans serif: It has directed staff at home and overseas to phase out the Times New Roman font and adopt Calibri in official communications and memos, in a bid to help employees who are visually impaired or have other difficulties reading. From a report: In a cable sent Tuesday and obtained by The Washington Post, Secretary of State Antony Blinken directed the department to use a larger sans-serif font in high-level internal documents, and gave the department's domestic and overseas offices until Feb. 6 to "adopt Calibri as the standard font for all requested papers."
"The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin," read the subject line. Blinken's cable said the shift to Calibri will make it easier for people with disabilities who use certain assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to read department communication. The change was recommended by the secretary's office of diversity and inclusion, but the decision has already ruffled feathers among aesthetic-conscious employees who have been typing in Times New Roman for years in cables and memos from far-flung embassies and consulates around the world. "A colleague of mine called it sacrilege," said a Foreign Service officer in Asia, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy changes. "I don't mind the decision because I hate serifs, but I don't love Calibri."
"The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin," read the subject line. Blinken's cable said the shift to Calibri will make it easier for people with disabilities who use certain assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to read department communication. The change was recommended by the secretary's office of diversity and inclusion, but the decision has already ruffled feathers among aesthetic-conscious employees who have been typing in Times New Roman for years in cables and memos from far-flung embassies and consulates around the world. "A colleague of mine called it sacrilege," said a Foreign Service officer in Asia, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy changes. "I don't mind the decision because I hate serifs, but I don't love Calibri."
Good! (Score:3)
I donâ(TM)t get how Times has become the standard font of all standard fonts. Itâ(TM)s ugly, hard to read, and utterly uninspired. Calibri isnâ(TM)t the best font in the world, but itâ(TM)s a *huge* improvement over Times.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Funny)
Itâ(TM)s ugly, hard to read, ...
Thatâ(TM)s ironic. :-)
Re:Good! (Score:5, Funny)
Yep. They'll never kern....
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> Calibri isnâ(TM)t the best font in the world, but itâ(TM)s a *huge* improvement over Times.
Wingdings or death
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
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Signage and UIs (normally) contain few words that need to be read compared to long form documents and I think that makes quite a difference as well.
Personally, I generally find documents rendered in sans-serif more "attractive" from a distance but slightly harder to read than those rendered in a serif font. I think this is also consistent with research although I've not looked into it in a long time.
I worked for Xerox back in the days of the Alto et seq and that was my introduction to a font playground so I
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Times became popular on computers because it was one of the earliest and kinda freely available fonts that rendered reasonably well on both screen and in print.
Back then if you used Helvectica, for example, it would look crap on screen but okay in print. Also, Helvectica didn't come bundled with MS Word or Windows, and most people didn't want to pay for a font.
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Serifs are difficult to handle at low resolution. Now that screen PPI and paper DPI are comparable, serif is fine for screen use.
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because (Score:5, Informative)
Early Postscript printers (the only printers that matter) had 13 "fonts" - which were three typefaces, Courier, Helvetica, Times Roman, each in roman, italic, bold, and bold-italic, plus Symbol. For decades Helvetica and Times were the standard fonts for newspapers and magazines, and Courier was similar to typewritter fonts. So when printers came to businesses, you got the same font choices. Courier was obviously not going to be used, except for marking up drafts or other specialty uses, and that left Helvetica and Times. Research showed that serifs helped ease of reading, so Times was the choice.
Now that does not mean that Times was the best choice for reading on-screen (the lower resolution caused the serifs to be a hindrance to legibility) and it doesn't even mean that of all serif fonts, Times was the most legible font, the most beautiful font or the best choice for business communications. It was invented for use in newspapers to be compact and save paper. But it was the standard.
Now here's a sidestory. The original font design was made by the Times (not the New York Times, rather the Times of London) ... in conjunction with Monotype, not Linotype. Their font was called Times New Roman. When Linotype made their version of the font, they simply called it Times (or Times Roman) and the font metrics were different. Times was the font that was licensed to Adobe and Apple for use in Postscript, so it was the standard. When Microsoft made Windows 3.1, they were too cheap to license real Times from Linotype, so they went to Monotype and had them modify the original Times New Roman font to be print-compatible with Times. So that documents created with one font would have the same line breaks and page breaks as the other. So Times New Roman is in a sense the original font, and in another sense a knock-off of Times. (The same is true of the other knock-off fonts included by Microsoft - Arial and Courier New.)
Microsoft, being cheap, until the mid-2000s never bothered to license any good fonts. The other fonts it started to ship with its products like Verdana and Comic Sans were even more hideous. As people need to use fonts available on all computers, the obvious choice is Times New Roman.
At a certain point, Microsoft realized enough was enough and gave us Calibri and Cambria which are not too horrible. Does that help?
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Early Postscript printers (the only printers that matter) had 13 "fonts" - which were three typefaces, Courier, Helvetica, Times Roman, each in roman, italic, bold, and bold-italic, plus Symbol.
I remember that the Apple LaserWriter II series actually had a SCSI port on it so you could give it an external hard disk for font storage. I'm pretty sure it wasn't long after that mess that PostScript started supporting font transport with the print job, which allowed using any PostScript font with your document, without having the printer have to have the font as well.
I know that in the last 20 years it hasn't mattered in the slightest, though.
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Even the LaserWriter 1 with PS Level 1 supported additional fonts, it’s just that the print jobs were a lot smaller when you used a built in font. Remember, PostScript fonts and documents themselves are all just programs as far as the printer is concerned. Each letter is akin to a function call, so it doesn’t really matter whether it’s built in, or included as part of the program (other than memory limits on the printer itself).
Source: owned a LaserWriter 1 many years after they were long
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And ... (Score:3)
Cue some people complaining about woke font policies in 3... 2... 1...
[Hopefully *not* but betting against it would be silly at this point -- or that Calibri soon gets banned in Florida. :-) ]
Comic Sans (Score:3)
Perhaps a bipartisan committee can reach a compromise and replace the font with Comic Sans. That should disappoint everyone equally.
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I prefer Comic Sans between the lines.
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If the analysis was done, and done properly, then it is not woke virtue-signalling nonsense, it is a sensible measure.
If the analysis was not done, then it is indeed yet more woke virtue-signalling nonsense.
No debate needed, just facts.
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What analysis has been done to show that the gains for the visually imapired mean there is a net benefit to switching fonts ?
If the analysis was done, and done properly, then it is not woke virtue-signalling nonsense, it is a sensible measure.
If the analysis was not done, then it is indeed yet more woke virtue-signalling nonsense.
No debate needed, just facts.
This is a serious question, but what part of this issue implies that it's left-wing virtue signaling and not right-wing virtue signaling? At first glance to me, this is issue is neither woke nor fascist.
Both the left and the right do a lot of virtue signaling. It's just that each labels the opposition's efforts as virtue signaling and their own ideas as the substantive truth.
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This is a serious question, but what part of this issue implies that it's left-wing virtue signaling and not right-wing virtue signaling? At first glance to me, this is issue is neither woke nor fascist.
Both the left and the right do a lot of virtue signaling. It's just that each labels the opposition's efforts as virtue signaling and their own ideas as the substantive truth.
Interesting, the radical right calls it woke, yet if we take the demographics, they are more likely to be suffering age related macular degeneration or other low vision issues.
That's okay though, the kooks in the country like to use standard words for anything and anyone they disagree with, and any disagreement gets a Reee! from either. And they appear to disagree with just about everything, and want ot increase the disagreement list daily.
Which is why as a guy like me who hovers around the center, I
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What analysis has been done to show that the gains for the visually imapired mean there is a net benefit to switching fonts ? If the analysis was done, and done properly, then it is not woke virtue-signalling nonsense, it is a sensible measure. If the analysis was not done, then it is indeed yet more woke virtue-signalling nonsense. No debate needed, just facts.
Okay - no debate https://legge.psych.umn.edu/si... [umn.edu]
https://legge.psych.umn.edu/si... [umn.edu]
There are a lot of other info, included that you can investigate further.
This isn't debate here this is you getting some telling - Don't like it? Tough.
The radical right is starting to use "Woke" as often as the far left uses "incel". To the point that it means that they use it to label everything that they disagree with and add a new thing to their woke or incel list every day, diluting it and looking like a fi
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That has no bearing on:
"If the analysis was done, and done properly, then it is not woke virtue-signalling nonsense, it is a sensible measure.
If the analysis was not done, then it is indeed yet more woke virtue-signalling nonsense."
Just a bit of info for ya.
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That's the same study in both links, it's from 1988, and that study has zero bearing on the question he asked and does not deal with serif vs sans-serif at all.
Am I missing something?
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That's the same study in both links, it's from 1988, and that study has zero bearing on the question he asked and does not deal with serif vs sans-serif at all. Am I missing something?
Yes - I was answering the assertion that this was somehow woke. Woke wasn't even a term back in the day. Tell me - do you have some sort of problem with that? Your buddy made some insinuations, and I answered one of them.
Anyhow, far be it from me to not answer the other dictate. But I'll let you know - this is going down a rabbit hole. One of my best friends was an illustrator, and to simply say One is better is a bit silly - define better.
What is interesting is that he has clued me into the fact tha
Re:And ... (Score:5, Insightful)
How could it possibly matter a whit either way?
So far as I was ever aware, screen readers don't take the font into account at all. They read the actual ASCII or Unicode text in the document or page with no regard given to the specified font, and *maybe* announce when something is bolded or underlined or whatever. I'm sure you *could* technically create a screen reader that, instead, accesses the display, snapshots it, and reads it with OCR. But that seems to me to be a VERY daft approach to the problem. And I'd have major reservations about purchasing a solution whose developers went that route.
Given the technical realities, I'm guessing there was no analysis done. I wouldn't write this one off to wokeness though. Sarif fonts have been considered uncool and on the decline for quite the long while now. I'm just surprised they went with calibri over Helvetica, which seems to be nearly-universally considered to be the new hotness.
The actual analysis disagrees (Score:2)
There has been lots and lots of studies, and there's a great meta-analysis of over 50 such studies at:
http://alexpoole.info/blog/whi... [alexpoole.info]
And what does it conclude?
"3. Conclusion
What initially seemed a neat dichotomous question of serif versus sans serif has resulted in a body of research consisting of weak claims and counter-claims, and study after study with findings of “no difference”. Is it the case that more than one hundred years of research has been marred by repeated methodological flaws, o
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Color me amazed.
Any organization with a Diversity office should have a Reality office, to keep the bullshit in check.
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BTW, Google's OCR, i.e. take a photo of scribbly handwriting, upload to GDrive & open as a document, is impressive. It's better at reading illegible handwriting than I am!
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or that Calibri soon gets banned in Florida.
As a Floridian, I fully support this proposal!
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Too much work. I'll just use Calibri or Arial.
Re:And ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well I've always found that someone specifying a non-free front (like Calibri) is a good indication of simple ignorance. For example, this whole post confuses the point by saying that "Calibri" is mandated over "Times New Roman" when it really sounds like it is a situation where sans-serif is being specified over serif and people are clueless that there are many other sans-serif and serif fonts other than those two owned and distributed by a single company, Microsoft. Even the headline appears to get this wrong.
I would also think that the font is completely irrelevant if you are using a "screen reader" on something like a PDF. A change of font would only be useful for readers of hard-copy or printed-then-scanned documents. But again maybe that is just the reporter or press release writer being too clueless to actually get it right, but the underlying policy is, in fact, appropriately justified based on improving the handling of printed material.
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Yes, this sounds like it would be better positioned as using sans-serif fonts over serif fonts -- but then people would have to learn what those terms mean. :-) I'm guessing they think it's much easier, and more direct (this *is* the Government), to just use specific font names. In that case, though, specifying several sans-serif fonts, including free ones, would be helpful -- unless for some reason want people to just use one, which should be a free one.
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I would also think that the font is completely irrelevant if you are using a "screen reader" on something like a PDF. A change of font would only be useful for readers of hard-copy or printed-then-scanned documents. But again maybe that is just the reporter or press release writer being too clueless to actually get it right, but the underlying policy is, in fact, appropriately justified based on improving the handling of printed material.
If font really is a consideration for screenreader users, I'm starting to suspect that they print out pdf and put that under a camera based, OCR screenreader.....
Anyone here positive that they would not print out their emails?
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Nah, style guides are common in any organization of significant size, from a small 30 person company all the way up to the US government. This is a modification of their style guide. If it was me, I would have gone with Helvetica, but well, I’m old school and like its clean lines if I’m doing a san serif font.
Anyhow, a given government functionary shouldn’t be just using whatever random font they want, they really should be using the official templates and style guides as presented to them
Re: (Score:3)
Well I've always found that someone specifying a non-free front (like Calibri) is a good indication of simple ignorance.
I was wondering that too. Does it mean that all State Department documents are created using Microsoft Word?
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Does it mean that all State Department documents are created using Microsoft Word?
Maybe, maybe not. But it is a well-known fact that the US Government runs Windows on desktops, uses Microsoft Office, and mandates Microsoft formats.
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hashtag (Score:2)
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Calibri is a proprietary %$#@! Microsoft font (Score:5, Informative)
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Doesn't matter, the government already uses Microsoft products, has licenses, etc. This is not for you to write to them, this is for them to write to you.
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But what if I use an OS like Ubuntu that doesn't ship with MS Calibri, how will I read communications with the US government?
fontconfig lets you specify fallbacks. You almost certainly already have a default one.
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But what if I use an OS like Ubuntu that doesn't ship with MS Calibri, how will I read communications with the US government?
Fallback fonts. Basically every system or software package has it. The only time it is really an issue is when you go cross script (e.g. open a Chinese document with a missing font, and the fallback font on your English system may not contain the correct character set).
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No one cares. Microsoft isn't going to go after someone for using the default typeface of their own product. There's literally no risk to using Calibri in any Microsoft ecosystem... which nearly all governments in the world are.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds like more embrace-extend-extinguish to me. So much for the "kindler, gentler" Microsoft.
Yes, I understand it's the government making this choice, but I'm guessing it's because Microsoft made it difficult to avoid.
http://www.cptech.org/a2k/odf/odfwkshop20oct06/whyodf.pdf [cptech.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I understand it's the government making this choice, but I'm guessing it's because Microsoft made it difficult to avoid.
Absolutely nothing prevents them from choosing another font, like Noto Sans.
What?! It thought Century Schoolbook was it? (Score:4, Informative)
I thought Century Schoolbook was the "proper" font for US gov't correspondence?
Anyway, looky here -- the old Word default was Times New Roman.
The new Word default is Calibri, since like 10 years now I think.
Make of that what you will.
Re: (Score:2)
According to this, Calibri is being phased out: https://news.ucdenver.edu/good... [ucdenver.edu]
Probably Calibri didn't have strict enough license for MS's taste and they need something with which they can extract more licensing dollars.
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New Century Schoolbook is the standard used for signage by the National Park Service and, I think, the US Forest Service. I doubt that branding will change. I know the NPS moved away from it for a while, and since moved back.
About that default... (Score:2)
The new Word default is Calibri, since like 10 years now I think.
Well about that ... https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com]
Though it stands to reason that a government agency should adopt a default right at the same time when it is dropped by the rest of the world :-)
typeface, not font (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
TFA actually uses "typeface" correctly in several places, but "font" in others. I imagine it varies based on the information source (person/people) included for the article -- ie: stating things as they did.
The department has used Times New Roman as its standard typeface for memos sent to the secretary since 2004.
The Washington Post uses the serif-friendly typeface Miller Daily in print and Georgia in digital versions.
Many experts agree that serif typefaces — categories of fonts with added strokes — are more difficult to read on computer screens. (The difference is lessened when it comes to printed materials.)
I imagine many (most?) people here on /. actually know the difference, but use "font" colloquially instead of "typeface".
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And yet you probably use DB-9 cables all the time.
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Nah. It's all RJ-45 cables now. And USB-C.
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In my decades of computer wankery I have never, ever seen a cable sold purely as "DB-9", only connectors. I have seen cables sold as "DB-9 Serial" which is, you know, not at all the same thing.
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The problem with language (especially english) is that it is fluid and the meaning of words change overtime. At one point in time this was true and though still technically true "font" is now interchangeable with "typeface" for most people.
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Since most of us don't have to go get a bunch of metal chips out of the cupboard whenever some dumbass wants to change fonts, we promoted "font" to the modern equivalent.
As in, "you want to use Calibri? Font you, I'm sticking with Liberation Sans."
Comic Sans FTW! (Score:2)
I thought it was the opposite (Score:3)
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Nope. That's a well understood concept. Serifs help the eye flow over the word but make letters more complex.
Serif fonts are more readable.
Sans-Serif fonts are more legible.
It's one of the reasons serif fonts are still a preferred default for print while sans serif are a default for a lot of digital based text (especially on low resolution, or smaller sized displays).
your tax dollars at work... (Score:2)
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There is only one font (Score:2)
How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sending out your emails as plain text. and let the recipient determine what typeface, size and color (fg/bg) to have set as their default.
(I have had impaired vision for a long time and find it easier to read white text on a black background. I read (books and magazines) on the Kindle (Fire or PC app) and like to read the articles/text in the text mode.)
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Chalk up another agreement point, here.
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No thanks. Plain text removes too much of the contextual formatting required for communication. We lose enough communication in written text as it is without the inability to manage how our typeface looks. The use of fonts and formatting are required to separate various pieces of text from one another.
I'm sorry to hear you have impaired vision, but software vendors should be providing you an accessibility option to allow you to read and function without impeding the communication of others. e.g. a default t
TNR is terrible (Score:3)
It has always been a terrible font. It's ugly. Its serifs are bad. Its kerning is shit. It's a bad font. Calibri *is* better because it lacks the ugly serifs, but not the best.
I'm still on Team Courier New (Score:2)
I know what you did! (Score:2)
Just a useless government office trying to do some (Score:4, Insightful)
My college days got me hooked on Courier. (Score:2)
Foggy Bottom does it again (Score:2)
Why am I not surprised the State Department chooses to standardize on a proprietary font Microsoft already began phasing out in 2021?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com]
OCR? (Score:2)
Surely serif is better for OCR since it provides extra context e.g; capital I versus lowercase L versus 1, etc.
Calibri? (Score:2)
At least it's not Comic Sans!
It's the State Derpartment (Score:2)
Mojibake seems entirely appropriate.
Seriously (Score:2)
Since Microsoft owns it, cant they arbitrarily increase the price? Did the state department get a guaranteed perpetual license? Then the state department will have to scramble to change the standard throughout itself and that would be a pain.
Courier! (Score:2)
Use old school Courier! :P
um, am I the only one who thinks... (Score:2)
this article misses a rather important odd thing here?
to wit:
The Secretary of State, at a time of international pandemics, massive illegal immigration, massive international drug and human smuggling, and a WAR IN EUROPE with an enemy who has and keeps threatening to use nukes, is worrying about what damned font to use in communications!!!
Time to take away all the shiny spiffy digital toys over at the state department, and issue teletypes, pencils-and-papers, bulletproof vests, hazmat suits, etc ... ANYTHI
- the typeface of Authority - (Score:2)
The sans- serif typefaces like Arial, Helvetica are the preserve of authority like government and corporations. They like the nazzi-like rigid, solid, authoritative, no-nonsense text. The flowery flowing script that is Times is rejected by such minds.
Yet, newspapers discovered centuries ago that Times is easier to read and friendlier to readers.
Your choice as a user of typefaces, is how you want to be perceived. Authoritarian or friendly. It is simple. Slashdot has made their choice, what's yours?
So? (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh, I much prefer serif fonts over sans-serif. I like not having to infer symbols based on context but having them be explicit, especially in technical documentation when letters are not always in words.
I recognize I'm in the minority there. But it's basically only something to argue about on the Internet, eh?
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Comparing anything to comic sans readability is stupid.
But yeah. The output device matters. I'm not sure if it's just a matter of screen resolution---sans serif is very hard to read at low resolutions---or if it's also a matter of how screens are used vs paper. Modern phones have very high dpi screens today and I find serif fonts look great, but I don't enjoy reading them on a screen with bright letters on a dark background, and the weights commonly used on screens are different than on paper. It's quite
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Comparing anything to comic sans readability is stupid.
Yer insulting the good folks who wanted to switch from TNR to comic sans, you insensitive clod!
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Eh, I much prefer serif fonts over sans-serif. I like not having to infer symbols based on context but having them be explicit, especially in technical documentation when letters are not always in words.
I still prefer not to read stuff set in OCR A/OCR B font....
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If you're not reading your technical and academic papers in Wingdings, you're missing out embracing life to its fullest.
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So is that a l or an I in Calibri? You can probably tell the difference via context when they pop up in words but try to easily distinguish the difference when they pop up in a password. 8^)
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Agreed. That is one reason I changed the font in Notepad to Consolas. It clearly shows the difference between a 1, l (lower L) and I (capital i), also 0 vs O.
If I have a question about a character in a password, quote, or person's name, I will paste the text into Notepad to verify.
Re: Good (Score:2)
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Even for serif fonts, Times New Roman always felt to thin and harder to read when tired. The problem wasn't the serifs at all, but the design.
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
I've also seen serif fonts that were quite a bit heavier than Time New Roman and didn't enjoy reading those either on the published page. Then there are fonts that look beautiful in print, but are lighter than Times New Roman and even more tiring to read, such as Garamond. I love its appearance, but it's too light for lots of text.
Lately my go-to font for printed word is Linux Libertine. Hits a sweet spot for me.
Another decent font is Liberation which preserves the same widths as Times New Roman, but is a bit heavier. So it can be a direct substitute for Times New Roman without changing the pagination. Some may like it.
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Hmm make that "Liberation Serif." I imagine it's in every Linux distribution, so it probably is already available if you fired up LibreOffice.
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Down with TNR [Re:Good] (Score:2)
I always found TNR much more taxing to read than Calibri.
The problem isn't that serif fonts are harder to read, the problem is with Times New Roman, which is a weirdly tiny font.
Try Georgia instead, it has the readability of a serif font, but doesn't make you squint.
Please RECOMMEND the best serif font! (Score:2)
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Classic you; assuming your experience is the same one everyone has or should have.
Maybe all that Calibri is why you aren't so smart anymore (font style affects memory) [discovermagazine.com]
Antivaxxers are broadly categorized as "having been so safe they forgot what made them safe", and this seems extremely similar - you've forgotten or ignored the things that contributed to that over inflated sense of self.
Ah yes - I knew a comic sans person would show up. Anyhow - let's test it out.
Operating under the assumption that the difficulty or reading has a marked edly better retention rate, lets pick war and peace, in Helvetica, and War in Peace in "Bleeding Cowboys" font. https://www.pickafont.com/imag... [pickafont.com]
The results should show Bleeding Cowboys will make for much better retention of the contents of the novel.