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Standard Web Fonts 'Updated' In Vista
BladesP9 writes "Beginning with Vista, Microsoft has updated the standard Web Core Fonts that it has used since the late 1990s. 'With the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft has unleashed something quite new on the Web — the "C" fonts; Cambria, Calibri, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, and Corbel.' The article goes on to state that 'if you're a web designer and not using Vista then this download is mandatory since it will let you see your page as your Vista users see it.' The article includes a PDF document offering visual comparisons of the old and new fonts (pdf)."
Regardless of whether you're right or not (about grabbing back marketshare), the fonts that they're introducing aren't all that bad in themselves. Although I recognize that it's probably a subjective judgment, I think that the new set of fonts are more readable. For example, I think Calibiri and Candara are easier to read than Arial and Helvetica, respectively.
I've ranted about this before.
Not everyone will have these fonts; not for a long time, anyways. Browsers will then instead use the default sans serif font (Helvetica or Arial typically). Pages viewed in Arial or Helvetica that were intended for Calibri will, at least, not look good and, at worst, be completely unreadable.
Why?
Calibri (which is the one font in the group certain to become the choice of future web developers) has a different size than, say, Arial. A 1em or 12pt or 14px tall Calibri character is going to actually be smaller than the same sized Arial character. The reason is due to the design of the font and the font's leading.
A page set at 100% (default) font size that looks good in Calibri will look oversized in Arial or Helvetica. Furthermore any sort of soft-alignments between texts or text and other page elements will break. For example the content you expect to appear "above the fold" or appear shorter than an image you've got aligned to the right will now be pushed below the fold or below the height of the image, creating an page layout for someone using a stock browser.
Let's take a shot in the dark here. Now these fonts are installed as part of Office 2007. They're part of Vista. They're not part of XP unless you either have Office 2007 or the 2007 compatibility pack installed. Let's say 5% of all internet browsing computers are Vista and 75% are XP. How many of those 75% have Office 2007 or the compatibility pack (which isn't automatically downloaded via windows update, requiring the user go and download it). I think a more than fair value is that 25% of those 75% have Office 2007 or the compatibility pack installed. That equals out to about 25% of all computer users have Calibri support right now. If you design with Calibri you're ignoring 75% of your user base.
In 3-5 years that number, I believe, will drastically increase to the point where the majority will support Calibri. But not now. So don't design with it.
Actually, the Microsoft Typography people are pretty good, and the new wave of OpenType fonts are pretty good about supporting things like ligatures. And of course OpenType is itself a technology that Microsoft has been heavily involved in supporting, and is basically the de facto standard format for all professional fonts now.
The Windows vs. MacOS anti-aliasing debate is a holy war so I'm not going there. But in terms of poor support for typography, it's not Windows that's the problem. Even Notepad in WinXP could deal with OpenType. It's just that flagship applications like Word can't, because despite BillG's grand announcement a few years ago about how important this all is (and the readability and accessibility research that agrees with him) the Office team didn't consider it enough of a priority to get it working in 2007.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.