atw: Re: Preferred font for coporate staff manuals
- From: "Michael Lewis" <Michael.Lewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:44:30 +1100
Christine Kent:
> I prefer to trust Microsoft and Christine. Microsoft is extremely unlikely
> to have changed to Calibri as their default font if it didn't have something
> seriously going for it. Christine got stuck with it while she was writing
> training for Office 2007 and woke up one day to find she could no longer
> read that ghastly Times New Roman - hardly scientific proof I know, but
> Microsoft has decreed - so eventually it will be - may as well give in
> gracefully and wait for the experts to come along and confirm that Microsoft
> got it right.
But TNR was never a sensible choice. It was designed for narrow columns of
small-size print on low-quality paper. I can only assume that MS used it as
default because they could acquire global rights at a low price.
> (Actually what it really has going for it is that it is highly readable both
> in print and on-line, removing the need to convert from TNR to Arial when
> putting material on-line.)
MS have spent some effort and money developing fonts suitable for online use -
that's where Georgia and Verdana came from. But finding one that works well
both online and in hard copy is a lot harder.
> I go cross eyed when reading that ghastly Palatino font above - where I used
> to like it. How much of our preference for one font over another is
> training rather than inherent in the font? If it is training, then Sans
> Serif will win, as almost all on-line material is in a Sans Serif font. I
> say almost all, because the website I happen to have open is using a serif
> font.
Good point. I've always thought (though with no research to back it up) that
the preference is formed in early life - which type of font is more generally
used for early children's reading? That's likely to vary from country to
country and from time to time, so maybe we shouldn't think in terms of "one
type of font is better than another" any more.
Michael Lewis
Lecturer
Department of Linguistics
MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY NSW 2109
Phone: +61 (0)2 9850 7856
Mobile: +61 (0)414 887782
Fax: +61 (0)2 9850 9199
www.ling.mq.edu.au
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