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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)."
Well I'm still using a CGA adapter. Does the world need more than 4 colors?
Basically they are slightly smaller and lighter in weight. That's about it.
There are lots of better fonts than the 'standard' web fonts. The web font are standard because everyone has them, and so they can be relied upon. When these fonts are freely avalible and routinely installed on 90+% of computers they might be acceptable to use instead of what's currently in use. Until then the point is that everyone has the 'standards'.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
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.
if getting these fonts is mandatory, then you better get bitstream vera sans too, because that's what i'm seeing.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Microsoft actually released these fonts with the last Office batch, and also allows you to download them freely from MSDN (just like the T series and the V series.) This all happened about 18 months ago. Thanks for noticing. (And, yes, people should download them, because Candara is just gorgeous.)
StoneCypher is Full of BS
They're totally cross-platform. The setup.exe will run fine in Windows 95, XP, and Vista.
Since their example didn't show it, and most tech types care, here's my take on Consolas's 1/l/I differentiation. Essentially, it's Courier New. The glyphs are practically identical. One has a sloping top, lowercase L has a flat top, and uppercase I has a bar across the top. Lucidia Console works almost the same way, except that a lowercase L has no bar on the bottom.
Contrast with my personal favorite, BitStream Vera Sans Mono: one and uppercase I work the same way, but lowercase L is notably different. This is especially useful for languages like Java where a lowercase L at the end of a number is valid and marks it as a long.
On the 0/O issue, Consolas goes with a line through the zero, Lucidia Console uses a slightly higher and narrower glyph compared with the uppercase O, and BitStream Vera Sans uses a dot in the middle.
Over all, I still prefer BitStream Vera Sans Mono for my console font. Consolas is a big improvement over previous monospaced fonts available in Windows, but BitStream Vera Sans Mono is perfectly usable and, in my opinion at least, slightly better.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Damn kids, can't even whistle a carrier anymore, how are they going to check their email on the road ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
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.
To state what a few people have skirted around but no-one's said explicitly: This Story Is Bollocks . All the same old web standard fonts are still included in Vista. Calls to them are in no way, shape, or form redirected to the new fonts. If you specify Times New Roman, or Arial, or Verdana, etc., Vista users will see it rendered exactly the same as anyone else; in the same fonts as everyone else. There's no need for web designers to download the new fonts to "let you see your page as your Vista users see it", because Vista users will see it the same as everyone else sees it.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Turn in your geek card at the door, we geeks don't ever hit the road, unless by road you mean the hallway between the basement and the kitchen.
Consolas with no antialiasing
Painful, isn't it? All the new fonts are apparently designed and specially hinted to make use of Cleartype (Microsoft's antialiasing & subpixel rendering algorithm). So they look beautiful with Cleartype on, alright with non-cleartype greyscale antialiasing (example), and "Aah! My eyes! The googles, they do nothing!" with no antiaiasing.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
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.
That's true. 6.4 colors should indeed be enough for anybody!