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Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

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Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#211

Post by johannes1234321 »

acchow wrote: post #173
rhplus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8.5”x11” is a standard size for the US and Canada, but not for the rest of the world. Which leads to the eternal problems for any NGOs or contractors working for the US government overseas who have to source Letter size for US gov partners and A4 for local partners!

Why would anyone care if they received the other paper size? The differences are tiny.

Asetter us a bit wider it might not fit in a folder properly and when stacked with other A4 forms it won't match, which can be a flying also it probably is processed by a machine where it might not fit. (Say a scan er which extracts the signature to print onto the passport)

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#212

Post by elygre »

zinekeller wrote: post #204
mellavora wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, come on. Everyone knows about A3 and A5.

For Americans et al. who don't know: - A3 is (within physical tolerances, anyway) twice the size of A4 - A5 is half the size of A4 - A0 is the biggest size and and has an area of 1 square meter, although it is not a square but instead it has an aspect ratio of 1:sqrt(2) (technically all A-series papers have this aspect ratio because math says it is the aspect ratio that retains itself when halved) - In practical sens…

Never saw A6 printer paper, but it’s quite common for note cards / index cards.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#213

Post by naasking »

garbagecoder wrote: post #124
smallerfish wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Replacing American exceptionalism with European exceptionalism (usually because of someone's trip when they were in college) is not necessarily always an improvement. ISO 216 isn't specifically European. It's used in most of the world. The same is true of the metric system. The world will indeed be incrementally better when people don't have to waste time converting measurements when operating between the US and el…

You assert it will be incrementally better without offsetting for the externalities of the switch, which would take decades. Also the metric system is European in origin. Despite what chapter 0 of every science book implies god did not invent it.

> You assert it will be incrementally better without offsetting for the externalities of the switch, which would take decades

The use of SI units is likely measured in centuries. You'll be fine, and you might save a few rockets, rollercoasters and planes here and there:

https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/weekly/6Page53.pdf

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#214

Post by thaumasiotes »

valgaze wrote: post #44

Allegedly during Colin Powell’ time at the State Department there was quite an ordeal to change paper sizes for communication between offices: https://www.govexec.com/magazine/2001/06/the-powell-leadersh... “correspondence between headquarters and overseas embassies, known as Diplomatic Notes, for years had to be accompanied by a legal-size (8 1/2-inch by 14-inch) cover sheet. That wasn't really a big deal when the n…

> "If anything so innocuous as changing the size of the paper for Diplomatic Notes was so exceedingly difficult, how difficult would it be to make more important changes?" Strickler says.

How difficult was it to change the size? Getting the official requirement changed was difficult; what would have happened if he hadn't bothered and had just started sending everything on normal paper?

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#215

Post by FooBarWidget »

jhanschoo wrote: post #109
azalemeth wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! This a thousand times. Many universities I know now discourage sans-serif fonts for screen reasons and prefer Arial because one study showed a slight preference for those who were dyslexic. The evidence is far from strong [1] and frankly I feel like doing a meta-analysis of it in my spare time. I really, really, really dislike Arial and find it harder to read than others. [1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q…

I'm puzzled why sans-serif fonts would be discouraged for screen reasons. My understanding is that serif fonts are more visibly degraded than sans-serif fonts on low-resolution displays.

Displays are no longer low-resolution.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#216

Post by biztos »

todd8 wrote: post #168
NeoTar wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone is unaware, A0 is 1m^2 in size, and each adjacent number is half the size (i.e. A1 = 500 000 mm^2, A2 = 250 000 mm^2, A3 = 125 000 mm^2, A4 = 62 500 mm^2). This has the great advantage of allowing documents to be easily up and down-scaled on a photocopier - i.e. an A3 document can be printed at 50% scale on an A4 sheet. I wonder if anyone ever tried to do something similar with imperial units (AKA Engl…

US paper sizes: ANSI A == 8.5 x 11 inches (letter) ANSI B == 11 x 17 inches ANSI C == 17 x 22 inches ANSI D == 22 x 34 inches ANSI E == 34 x 44 inches There are additional sizes frequently used in the US too: business card, legal, half letter, and specialized sizes for architecture.

9 x 12 inches and 11 x 14 inches are standard in art paper in the US. As are 5 x 7 and 8 x 10.

The first one, 9 x 12, happens to also be “ARCH A” but I haven’t seen a fancy name for the others.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#217

Post by lofatdairy »

Perceval wrote: post #53
tokai wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Results showed a small, but significant advantage in response times for words written in a sans serif font." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20445911.2011.5... "Sans serif, monospaced and roman font styles significantly improved the reading performance over serif, proportional and italic fonts." https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2513383.2513447 and here a whole book about that question https://library.…

Dyslexia associations have recommended Comic Sans as a font that allows for easier reading comprehension. Experts say that opposition to Comic Sans is ableist: https://www.thecut.com/2020/08/the-reason-comic-sans-is-a-pu... I, for one, think all State Dept cables should henceforth be transmitted in Comic Sans, so as to provide maximum accessibility.

While I really hope the claim that hating on Comic Sans being ableist is facetious, I do kinda like the font, and use Fantasque Sans[^1] in my terminal.

[^1]: https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-sans

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#218

Post by hisyam »

aidenn0 wrote: post #147
hot_gril wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serif'd fonts are easier to read.

Per TFA they picked a sans font (Calibri) under the mistaken impression that sans serif fonts are easier to read.

The tweet underneath mentioned OCR.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#219

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

laurencerowe wrote: post #201
todd8 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US paper sizes: ANSI A == 8.5 x 11 inches (letter) ANSI B == 11 x 17 inches ANSI C == 17 x 22 inches ANSI D == 22 x 34 inches ANSI E == 34 x 44 inches There are additional sizes frequently used in the US too: business card, legal, half letter, and specialized sizes for architecture.

I’ve only ever seen letter size paper available in offices in the US whereas almost every office photocopier/printer in UK/EU is stocked with both both A4 and A3. The larger sheets are really nice for sketching diagrams.

11x17 printer trays were common for engineering use before we got decent high resolution monitors and most work process became paperless.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#220

Post by OhioMan2943 »

tokai wrote: post #9
splatzone wrote: post #4

Interesting that the memo claims that sans serif fonts are preferred to serif fonts for screen reader users and people with disabilities. I thought the exact opposite was true. Is there any definitive research on which type of font is more accessible?

"Results showed a small, but significant advantage in response times for words written in a sans serif font." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20445911.2011.5... "Sans serif, monospaced and roman font styles significantly improved the reading performance over serif, proportional and italic fonts." https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2513383.2513447 and here a whole book about that question https://library.…

Isn't 'small but significant' quite ironic.
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