alt Hacker NewsCalibri font has "I" and "l" the same, according to Wikipedia. A better font should avoid characters being too similar (such as "I" and "l" and "1").
Another issue is due to the font size and font metrics, how much space it will take up on the page, to be small enough to avoid wasting paper and ink but also not too small to read.
So, there are multiple issues in choosing the fonts; however, Times New Roman and Calibri are not the only two possible choices.
Maybe the government should make up their own (hopefully public domain) font, which would be suitable for their purposes (and avoiding needing proprietary fonts), and use that instead.
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Nothing is more inefficient than the secretary of state thinking about and conducting meetings about the font used in documents. It just doesn't matter in the sense that it "doesn't move the needle".
I expect the leaders of a government deciding on matters that have a real impact on people's live, not on stuff that from a practical point of view is totally irrelevant.
You are right, but if legibility had been the reason for change, Times New Roman is a rather poor choice, even if better than Calibri.
Among Microsoft typefaces, Georgia would have been much better than Times New Roman, especially when read on displays, but even when printed.
There are of course even better choices, but Georgia is a familiar typeface for most people, it is similar enough to Times New Roman and the older versions of Georgia are free to use by anybody.
Georgia is not as condensed as Times New Roman, but here Times New Roman is the anomaly, as it is more condensed than a normal font, for the purpose of fitting within narrow newspaper columns.
From Windows 3.0 to Windows 98, I have used Times New Roman as my main text font in documents, because Windows did not include anything better, but immediately after the introduction of the superior Georgia I replaced Times New Roman with it for some years, until eventually I stopped relying on the bundled typefaces and I have bought some typefaces that I liked more, for use in all my documents. (Windows 3.0 did not have yet TTF fonts, with which the licensed Times New Roman was introduced later, but it already had a metrically equivalent Times font).
True though the confusion about that is largely when you're not dealing with words like passwords or hashes. In the context of words it's going to be generally disambiguated by context, I can't think of an example off hand in writing where I and l will that ambiguous. The removal of serifs probably has a higher impact to more people unless I'm missing some common situation where they'd be easy to confuse in context.
I've always found serif fonts easier to read, although I prefer Baskerville over Times.
Come to think of it, I vs l vs 1 vs | is one advantage of serif fonts.
Yep. Any font that neglects to put crossbars on the capital "i" should be eliminated from consideration for any practical application.
See this policy of return to Times New Roman really works. People are debating particular letters after (both) rulings have been made instead of the fact that president protects pedophiles.
No. I don’t want the gov wasting money making a fucking font.
There’s a few dozen off the shelf fonts that would work for 99.99% of people.
For those who it doesn’t work, deal with it. It’s a font. Or fallback to system font.
> Calibri font has "I" and "l" the same, according to Wikipedia. A better font should avoid characters being too similar (such as "I" and "l" and "1").
Only when used in a context where they can be confused. This is a situation where HN is going to give bad advice. Programmers care deeply about that stuff (i.e. "100l" is a long-valued integer literal in C and not the number 1001). Most people tend not to, and there is a long tradition of fonts being a little ambiguous in that space.
But yes, don't use Calibri in your editor.
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A font was the en_US version of fount. A fount was a particular example of a typeface. A typeface is something like TNR or Calibri. They all seem to have been munged into a single set of synonyms except for fount which has been dropped (so why do we still have colour and all that stuff)?
A print, then typewriter, then computer typeface emulates a written script but also takes on a life of its own. Handwriting in english is mostly gibberish these days because hardly anyone uses a pen anymore! However, it is mostly "cursive" and cursive is not the same as serif and sans.
English prides itself on not having diacritics, or accents or whatever that thing where you merge a A and E is called, unless they are borrowed: in which case all bets are off; or there is an r in the month and the moon is in Venus.
So you want a font and it needs to look lovely. If your O and 0 are not differentiated then you have failed. 2:Z?, l:L:1? Good.
I use a german style slash across the number seven when I write the number, even though my number one is nothing like a german one, which looks more like a lambda. I also slash a lone capital Zed. I slash a zero: 0 and dot an O when writing code on paper. Basically, when I write with a pen you are in absolutely no doubt what character I have written, unless the DTs kick in 8)
> Maybe the government should make up their own
They have, public sans, courtesy of USWDS, and it does distinguish between l and I with a little hook/spur on lowercase el
https://public-sans.digital.gov/
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Public+Sans?preview.text=1...