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US Govt Makes Times New Roman 14 Official Font
pollux03 writes "According to ABC news, 'In an internal memorandum distributed on Wednesday, the department declared "Courier New 12" - the font and size decreed for US diplomatic documents for years - to be obsolete and unacceptable after February 1.
"In response to many requests and with a view to making our written work easier to read, we are moving to a new standard font: 'Times New Roman 14'," said the memorandum. ' The report goes on to cite a few exceptions to the rule including official telegraphs."
Does this department have a name or can we assume that this is THE department?
Not to be petty or anything, but just how slow of a news day does it have to be when a font change is considered newsworthy?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Instead of actually doing something useful, they sit around and argue over the right font to use.
And we sit around arguing over their arguments. Which is worse?
That they are going from a fixed-width font (courier) to a variable-width font (Times). Columns of numbers, etc. won't line up as nice with Times, especially if the people creating the documents don't know what they are doing.
Taxpayers are not paying for us to argue.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
and yet we still do not have an official language!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Instead of actually doing something useful, they sit around and argue over the right font to use.
Yeah, imagine making sure everyone is using a standard font people can read so they can be assured that people will have it on their computer and can view the documents properly!
I stole this Sig
Since some slashdotters (including myself) work at public university IT departments, and others work for NASA, the taxpayers do indeed pay for us to argue.
They should have used an open license font like Bitstream Vera. This would have given them the fixed spaced "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono" for tabular data, "Bitstream Vera Serif" for paragraph and "Bitstream Vera Sans" for headers, captions, etc. Simply beautiful and open. :)
They are subsidizing you to argue.
The student's tuitions are more or less the ones that are paying you.
A lot of big organizations make decisions like this. The State Dep't wants documents coming from it to have a similar look and feel. Just consider it a social CSS.
I subcontracted for State for a while, and this is actually a step in the right direction. They have 2 print shops, one for GS and one for FS, and people have lately been printing some really stupid looking reports and circulars. It's kind of a shame that they chose 14 pt TNR, since that pretty much keeps you from being able to make a small, glossy report like people like nowadays, but some consistency would be a good thing.
Also, this only seems to apply to printed materials. Electronic publications can stay in whatever font you want, which is good since I hate seriffed fonts on a screen.
All's true that is mistrusted
The government uses a lot of OCR - more than you would believe. Standardizing on one exact font description makes it far easier to build an OCR engine optimized for speed and accuracy, which in turn saves time and taxpayer dollars.
Wait a second.. are you saying that the government is spending lots of time OCRing their own computer documents??
Now that is a waste of time and money!
They chose the Times New Roman typeface at 14 point, consisting of the fonts regular, italic, bold and bold italic.
A typeface could technically be a font if you only have one version of that typeface = the one font in it.
The Black Iron Prison is alive and well.
But historically speaking, of course, the Roman Empire's western collapse did nothing to its eastern empire, which was later renamed the "Ottaman Empire", but was largely constructed out of lands conquered by the Romans.
World War I was the former Western states of the Roman Empire attacking (and reclaiming) the actual power of the vestigal Roman Empire.
While it could be argued that Victorian London was the new "Rome", the actual throne resided in Turkey.
In any case World War II was the shifting of power amongst Western governments - for Hitler it was the recreation of the empire under him - but for everyone else it was in fact protecting the empire against the barbarians all over again. After the dust settled, the throne was moved from London to Washington, where it is today.
The symbolism of 1st Century Rome continues today in America. Eagles, for example, where the symbol of both Rome and America. The use of Greek inspired architecture in our government buildings.
The list goes on and on. Suffice it to say that the Roman Empire is alive and well, and under its new auspices - World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, North Atlantic Treaty Organization - it continues to operate.
I can think of something you can send your Congresscritter from WesternUnion.com that would have almost certainly have a greater impact than a telegram.
Convenient that it lets you send both!
The enemies of Democracy are
This is the State Department. You know, embassies and stuff? Telegrams are a good basic, fast, communication system.
A diplomat may be at the mercy of the local communication system, and I know of countries where modems are outlawed. (They mess up the cheap bugs the local law enforcement has on all the phones. Not that the phones work...) If you need something to go faster than a letter, a telegram may be your only choice.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
"I want to make it perfectly clear to every one in the world that just because I'm shortsighted does not mean that I can afford not to be misudnerstood."
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Now, in the last 10-15 years it's become reasonable to use electronic means to move around large amounts of data between normal sites - that is, those not custom-built around mainframe systems like the original ARPAnet. The government seems to be making strides toward adapting to the new technology, but you have to understand that those giant traditional paper distribution networks can't just be replaced overnight. I'm sure that there are a lot of instances where, at this exact moment in time, it's actually cheaper and more efficient for office "A" to transmit information to office "B" using paper as a carrier medium.
Remember, "Rome" wasn't built in a day (Heh! An on-topic pun! Ain't I the clever one?). It'll take a while to remodel it to suit the current technology.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Unfortunately, Garamond isn't readily available to all systems the government is likely to be purchasing / using, so the choice of Times New Roman (a Windows core font, and available on all Macs which have Internet Explorer installed) makes good fiscal sense.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
You've never had to talk with the customer's PHB about some program spec yet, have you?
;)
The tech stuff is easy. They just want the program to do everything _and_ the kitchen sink.
But what really causes weeks or months of meetings is
- "should the logo in the corner be exactly 120 pixels or 121 pixels?... no, wait, 119 pixels is just right."
- Then the fonts which _must_ be 7 pixel Sevenet (or some other non-standard font which is guaranteed not to even be installed on someone's computer, when they point their browser at the site. Bonus points if it's a pain to read.)
- And it all _must_ comply with some nighmarish corporate scheme that wasn't designed for the net to start with. Actual examples from actual projects I've worked on, include cyan on blue, and light orange on orange-ish yellow. Literally. I'm not making it up.
- And all the text _must_ always be limited into a 491 pixel wide area, to look the same on everyone's screen as it does on the PHB's laptop, with whatever default non-maximized position his IE remained set as. (God forbid that someone who uses 1600x1200 be actually able to use all that area to read the text.)
And so on and so forth. It's the stuff managers' dreams are made of. I'm guessing that if you stopped them from spending weeks debating the exact font size and exact logo size and hue, you'd suck all the fun out of management.
So, well, given that the government's job _is_ to manage... now why am I not surprised?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
A very common guideline for readability is that body text should use a serif font; sans serif fonts are better for titles.
Yes and no. That's true for high resolution media such as print media, but low resolution media such as a typical computer screen will not be able to render serifs clearly enough for small text to be anything other than counter-productive - which means that larger text such as headings are the only pieces of text that serif fonts should be considered for.
Having said that, I hope this guideline doesn't apply to the web. If no font is specified whatsoever, it appears in the typeface and size I have configured my browser to use, and so any fiddling with the font is going to be counter-productive.
No, I'm suggesting that if a guy brings a printed document (say, a permit or tax document) into another government office, and you need a digitized version, it's far easier to OCR it than hunt down the original. The government employs a LOT of people, and the fewer people you have to tap to get a specific task done, the more efficient that task becomes. It is easier for citizens to get in and get out of offices if a particular clerk is empowered to do everything they need to do. Even if, occasionally, work is getting done twice.
Besides, what happens when a file gets corrupt or lost? The price you pay for the efficiency of digital representation is that bits are more delicate than letters. That's why we keep hard copies, after all.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Courier is preferred by people who have to read large volumes of text, such as those who work in the publishing industry, because they find it easier to read.
Proportional fonts look nicer, which is why they are used in areas where visual presentation is important, such as consumer goods.
"US bans time-honored typeface"
What the heck?
1: The memo only applies to standardizing internal documentation for one department.
2: Courier is "time-honored" only in that it was the ubiquitous typeface for single-font devices like typewriters and ascii printers, as well as degrading nicely to dot matrix. Monospace is a pain to read in extended printed documents.
3: The article calls the new rules draconian, in spite of the fact that previously, Courier New 12 was mandated for all official documents!
There is nothing absurd about setting documentation standards. Half of all policies and procedures sound silly until you imagine an organization running without them. Suddenly your legislation turns up on perfumed pink antique laid with MS Script type instead of Times Roman on white bond.
And just think of the endless committees, sub-committees, working groups, focus groups, font lobbyists, R and D, marketing and strategising people that were involved. There were probably millions spent on deciding whether they should go for the relaxed 12 point, or the more dynamic and assertive 'hell we're a superpower' 14 point approach.
I hear they're working on rebranding the bald eagle for the 21st Century, apparently the existing bird just isn't - well - [makes feeble hand gestures] swooping enough for today's time-poor, internet-rich, xboxed, click-to-continue, frappacino generation.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Actually, I used fixed space fonts like courier to pad my papers in college. Times New Roman 14 will probably be just slightly smaller than the mono-space Courier New 12.
Try it in a Word document. I filled a page with Time's New Roman 14 and converted it to Courier New 12. Courier takes up slightly more space (adding 6 lines).
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I agree completely. Garamond is the Font that has lasted with dignity through ages. It is the font of the illuminated, the cogniscenti.
Why, it's my favorite font!
Who own the rights on Times New Roman? Is that a copyright infringement to use it under an "alternative" operating system? Will someone be allowed to use Linux to compose official government documents?
I fFind it easier to read, easier to visually digest, easier to scan through and attain the main ideas presented by the text;
There's always the same number of characters, and therefore words. the even spacing of courier makes all text organized in even columns, which enables it's length of material to be judged quickly.
Courier (monospaced) fFonts are handy because tables can be built easily, fForms can be written simply. it's very easy to determine how much space is required when you know how many letters are expected.
Machines like monospacing because it is very easy to differentiate letters which have a tendency to look alike. OCR happens easier, fFax machines tend not to blur as much.
Transcribers and archivists like monospacing because it is very easy to read quickly. similar reasons already presented, it is easy to quickly scan, read, and differintiate. (i call out this item in specific because government is riddled with transcribers and archivists)
Courier is easier to read on an elementary level. remember, government is fFor everyone. disabled, poor vision, low literacy, young and old, all people must be able to read the documents in question.