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Mac Users' Internet Experience to Retain Same Fonts
thefickler sent in this article that opens, "Mac users will continue to see the Internet as it was intended, thanks to the renewal of a font licensing agreement between Microsoft and Apple. At TypeCon2007 Microsoft and Apple announced they have renewed their font licensing agreement, giving Apple users ongoing use of the latest versions of Microsoft Windows core fonts. Back in 1996 Microsoft started the "Core fonts for the Web" initiative. The idea of this initiative was to create a a standard pack of fonts that would be present on all or most computers, allowing web pages to be displayed consistently on different computers. While the project was terminated in 2002, some of the fonts defined as core fonts for the web have gone on to become known as "web safe fonts," and are therefore widely used by Internet developers."
I hate Arial with a passion, and wish my Mac would substitute Helvetica, since Arial was actually designed as a Helvetica clone that cost less to license.
Actually, Monotype originally developed Ariel for IBM in the early 80s, except at the time it was known as Sonoran Sans. Sonoran Sans was then repackaged as Ariel for Microsoft in the early 90s.
One reason MS discontinued the initiative, according to this, is because people were frequently abusing the EULA by repackaging the fonts in other programs.
My sig is permanently on strike.
(aside from the fact that it renders larger at a given point size than other fonts)
The point size of a font is measured from the top of the highest ascender (think l's, b's, and d's) to the bottom of the lowest descender (p's, q's, and y's). A typeface can be specified to be 14 points, but if it has a small x-height with ridiculously long ascenders and descenders, it will appear tiny. Verdana happens to have a large x-height, so at the same point size it appears larger than other typefaces that have a more "normal" x-height.
This guy's the limit!
Personally, I've never really been able to tell the difference between one font or another
Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
A bit of history on why Arial is so awful (in short). It's a font called Grotesque built to the proportions of Helvetica (so that it can be substituted for Helvetica without changing the page length.) As a result it has terrible eveness and is generally avoided by designers not out of design-snobbery, but due to how Arial negatively affects "grey area".
Microsoft have a history of fucking with typefaces to avoid paying licensing fees. Repeating this act recently with a their new vista font "Segoe" which is almost a carbon-copy of Frutiger. It's subtle differences can only be seen when enlarging the type beyond the 16pt standard test for font similarity. (A test which Segoe failed against Frutiger, flunking it's attempt at registration with the EU trademark office.) Also in Vista the use of Segoe is at 8, 9 and 10 point, figures significantly smaller than the generous 16pt test EU test.
"Mac users will continue to see the Internet as it was intended"
What's Wrong With Apple's Font Rendering?
Welcome to the blurry, but fast, browser...
Apple and Microsoft have always disagreed in how to display fonts on computer displays...
Cascading Style Sheet docs recommend specifying multiple fonts for exactly this reason, suggesting that you use one of the generic font family names last as a fallback (serif, sans-serif, cursive, fantasy, or monospace).
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I love watching slashdotters talk about fonts since it's clear they don't know much.
It's a font called Grotesque
Grotesques are an entire class of fonts. It's not a single font. Perhaps you're thinking of Akzidenz Grotesk.
Good news! You can have the Web this way right now. (At least, you can if you're using Firefox; Safari probably has a similar feature, but I don't use it so I can't guarantee that.)
Now the Web will be rendered in exactly the fonts you specified, and you never have to be offended by the sight of Arial again :-)
Read my blog.
Times New Roman is a standard publishing font. Screenplays are written in that font. Some fonts aren't designed to be attractive just legible.
Well, I'm going to go with "smart business practice".
Sucks if you're the consumer, but that's not really their problem now, is it?
Microsoft has always sucked at standards. They still haven't really gotten rid of WINS and NetBIOS in their IP stack.
Only if, by "wanting", you mean "isn't exactly the same as Windows", or "when I disable anti-aliasing and use unhinted fonts, the fonts look like they've not been hinted".
On an LCD display with subpixel rendering enabled, or a high-res CRT with greyscale AA enabled, Linux fonts are usually fine. The font renderers work the exact same way that Mac OS X works, with one exception. FreeType's auto hinter produces a result that's somewhere between Apple's (antialiased, but slightly fuzzy fonts), and Microsoft's (hammer everything strictly onto the pixel grid, even if it destroys the look of the font), and looks fine when used with the common Linux fonts, or with Apple's OS X fonts. It looks absolutely horrible if you use Microsoft's fonts, since they were all designed for monochrome hinted display, with the newer ones being designed for Microsoft's ClearType renderer. They all look hideous on Mac OS X, or on Linux (unless you enable the bytecode hinter, and disable all anti-aliasing, in which case it looks identical to Windows without ClearType).
The only reason to use Microsoft's fonts is to get a font of a similar style, which has compatible glyph metrics. In which case, you may as well use RedHat's Liberation Fonts.
Why don't we all install liberation fonts and be done with it?
I don't want to read
Here's the Safari version:
/. appears to be using Helvetica (and I have default font settings). And, yes, I know what to look for to tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica.
1. Go to Safari's preferences window
2. Choose "Appearance" pane
3. Choose the fonts you want substituted for the "Standard Font" and the "Fixed-Width Font". In your case, Helvetica for Standard and Monaco for Fixed-width
4. Close the preferences window
Note that the default font in the "Standard Font" is Times (not TNR!), which is not sans serif. There's no option to choose a sans serif font separately. Presumably, Safari uses the system font (Gill Sans, IIRC) as its sans serif font. Though as I type this, the text in
But because smartphones usually run in portrait mode (240 x 320 instead of 320 x 240) Verdana is too wide. Windows Mobile 6 has a narrow font (with anti-aliasing) that is very legible. Even then, Tahoma, not Verdana used to be the font of choice in WM5 and before (Windows 2000, XP); the difference is obvious if you compare 'm side by side.
I'm a Webdesigner and I actually like Trebuchet. ... Does that make me a follower of the antichrist?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
You're correct. In the days of movable type, type was measured based on the size of the entire body which held the character. And a true typographical point is approximately 1/72 of an inch (and also depends on whose system you are using, as there have been a few over the past five or six centuries). 1/72 of an inch was chosen a few decades ago by Adobe when they developed PostScript.
This guy's the limit!
Yes. This article explains exactly why this is the case.
The "too long; didn't read" summary: Microsoft optimizes font display for on-screen readability, whereas Apple optimizes for getting the same results (page coverage or "grayness %") on screen as you would obtain in print.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'