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."

Comments

Eww, I wish that license would expire

[_merlin]

Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana are all horrible fonts. I'd rather have my Mac automatically substitute decent fonts when they're specified. Isn't the point of HTML, and hence the web, to specify the structure of a document rather than its appearance? Shouldn't the appearance depend on my preferences?

You aren't a designer

[_merlin]

You, like most users, are not a designer, and don't notice the subtle differences between the proprietary fonts used on a Mac and the free (as in speech and beer) fonts used on Linux. You probably think Arial and Helvetica look the same, too. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and just highlights one reason that most people won't really care whether this license is extended or not - most people just want legible text so they can get the information.

On the other hand, I am a pedant. I pay close attention to fonts. I notice when a single character has been substituted because the specified font didn't have a glyph for a particular codepoint. But I don't care too much for this license, either. 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. Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness. Courier New is just plain ugly. I want my fixed-pitch text rendered in Monaco.

So all in all, I don't see how the extension of this license is a good thing for anyone.

Re:You aren't a designer

[gEvil (beta)]

(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.

One of Apple's worst decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see what Apple gained here:

1. Arial - Crap
2. Times New Roman - Crap
3. Comic Sans - Quite possibly the font of the antichrist
4. Courier New - Crap and Apple has access to Courier (the good one) anyway
5. Georgia - Decent but could be replaced with Garamond in any situation for better results
6. Impact - Futura with a missing chromosome
7. Trebuchet - I was mistaken, THIS is the font of the antichrist
8. Verdana - Doesn't Apple own their own variant of Myriad? What the hell do they need this for?
9. Andale Mono - Could be worse, but why care when you have the rights to use Monaco?
10. Webdings - wow, just wow

I sincerely hope Apple didn't spend a lot of money on this crap.

Re:a wild guess

[Dachannien]

I'm guessing the "Goatse Wingding super font pack" is not on that list.

Today's episode of Slashdot has been brought to you by the letter O.

Embrace extend extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

I this is just part of an evil plot to get Mac users used to using these fonts then later MS will make you buy the vowels.

Re:Embrace extend extinguish

[letsgolightning]

Mcrsft wld nvr d tht!

Re:Why was the project terminated?

[l33t.g33k]

One reason MS discontinued the initiative, according to this, is because people were frequently abusing the EULA by repackaging the fonts in other programs.

Re:Whatever happened to content vs presentation?

[Dr. Cody]

Specific fonts (or, correctly, "typefaces" - a given font is a particular incarnation of a typeface, including size, so Comic Sans 10pt is a different font to Comic Sans 12pt) shouldn't be necessary - families of typefaces maybe, if you're trying to achieve a particular style, but not fonts or even necessarily typefaces.

I spent a few years working with desktop publishing gurus turned web developers, and I heard this goddamn typeface/font distinction made all the time.

It drove me nuts, but, in the end, one of us was correct about the use of a common technical definition, and the other had sex with women.

Re:Huh?

[VGPowerlord]

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).

A question to the world:

[pizzach]

Has anyone noticed that when you use a Mac for a while, Windows fonts suddenly feel really pixelated with Cleartype?

Then if you use a PC for a while, when you come back to a Mac the fonts feel really blury?

Re:Liberation fonts...

[Trogre]

Because the silly sausages released it under a licence that prohibits any distribution whatsoever.