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Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

reuters.com

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Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#281

Post by FeteCommuniste »

gerdesj wrote: post #250
zzo38computer wrote: post #55

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"). 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 Calibr…

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 engl…

The linked A+E thing is called a ligature:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(writing)

Same root as "ligament" and "ligand."

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#282

Post by Ferret7446 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #221
IshKebab wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people tend not to Yeah because normal people never have to deal with alphanumeric strings...

> Yeah because normal people never have to deal with alphanumeric strings... Natural language tends to have a high degree of disambiguating redundancy and is used to communicate between humans, who are good at making use of that. Programming languages have somewhat less of disambiguating redundancy (or in extreme cases almost none), and, most critically, are used to communicate with compilers and interpreters that ha…

People named Al are having a field day with the recent AI boom.

El confusion is absolutely a problem for regular people.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#283

Post by dsevil »

I've seen some comments about how Times New Roman was replaced with something else to improve readability by many.

There's an irony: the _Times_ (of London) commissioned it in 1932 to improve the readability of its newspaper, which previously used a Didone/Modern style typeface.

I like Times New Roman and I find Calibri, a rounded-corner sans serif, to be an absolute abomination of milquetoast typography.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#284

Post by FeteCommuniste »

irishcoffee wrote: post #268
gerdesj wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 engl…

I thought I was the only one that still crossed a seven and slashed a zero. I don’t dot an ‘O’ however.

I cross my sevens, slash my zeros, and use a hook on lowercase T to avoid confusion with plus signs. I think I developed the hook-T habit in college math classes.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#285

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

foldr wrote: post #235
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the concept of an accessible font is signaling. I don't think that Times New Roman is actually less legible than Calibri, and have never seen research claiming to find that Times New Roman in particular or serifs in general pose accessibility problems.

I easily found some research by searching Google scholar: https://www.scitepress.org/Papers/2021/109668/109668.pdf It's not a big difference, but apparently TNR was the worst of the fonts tested for OCR. But anyway, there was no "signaling" about the change to Calibri. No-one ever tried to make a political issue out of it the way Rubio is now.

I’m not sure what you think I mean by “signaling”. This is a study of OCR performance, with no attempt to measure practical accessibility issues caused by the font difference which you and I agree is not big. I’m still very skeptical that even a single State Department employee’s ability to do a good job depends on which font the department uses.

If you say that it doesn’t matter whether changing the font had a large practical impact, because it’s a gesture in the right direction or helps build a culture of accessibility, I would classify that as signaling.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#286

Post by IggleSniggle »

irishcoffee wrote: post #268
gerdesj wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 engl…

I thought I was the only one that still crossed a seven and slashed a zero. I don’t dot an ‘O’ however.

That's good, because the "O" should never be dotted. You use slash OR dot for zero, unless you vaguely remember them both as useful for disambiguating but forgot that both marks are for zero and vary by typeface. Mostly dotted zero was just during the dot matrix era. I wouldn't mind being shown counter examples.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#289

Post by chrismorgan »

shadowtree wrote: post #255

Good - Calibri is not open, badly supported on Linux et al. HN should rejoice in the US gov using a font that is open and truly cross platform.

Times New Roman, Arial, Courier New, Calibri, Cambria… all of these fonts are proprietary.

But there are open-source metrically-compatible alternatives to all of them, commonly included in Linux distributions and/or office suites like LibreOffice.

Probably the most popular set is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croscore_fonts, with Tinos, Arimo, Cousine, and in the extended set Carlito and Caladea. The former most popular set is probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts, with Liberation {Serif, Sans, Mono}.

But a given system is definitely less likely to have a Calibri alternative than a Times New Roman alternative.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#290

Post by anigbrowl »

jesterson wrote: post #288
anigbrowl wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You must be proud of mastering the grammar, aren't you? I guess there is nothing else to be proud of.

If you are going to make snide comments about the intelligence of others, be prepared for your own to be scrutinized.
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