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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

#441

Post by alphabetag675 »

dsevil wrote: post #283

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.

Times New Roman was designed for a time when printing quality was not that good. With 1080p screen nowadays, that barrier is removed, so optimization of readability has different constraints.

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

#442

Post by MadnessASAP »

Fnoord wrote: post #341
rtkwe wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may look better but it's harder to read basically across the board for anyone with difficulty distinguishing letters. Sans serif fonts are easier for people with dyslexia without going all the way to a dyslexia specific font. They're also generally far better for people with all sorts of poor vision. It really comes down to the fact that it's better to be functional, forms don't need to /look/ good they need to wo…

For aesthetic or other preferences you change the default font to whatever you please. The default font shouldn't be about aesthetics, it should be first and foremost about usability. Especially on printed media since there it cannot be changed in a whim. A couple of years ago I went into archives of Dutch newspapers to learn whether and how the famine of hunger in Ukraine (known as Holodomor) was reported back in 19…

> For aesthetic or other preferences you change the default font to whatever you please.

Ever tried changing the font of a printed document? Or a PDF?

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

#443

Post by coffeebeqn »

ksynwa wrote: post #440
chinathrow wrote: post #419

> U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor Antony Blinken's decision to adopt Calibri a "wasteful" diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters. What a waste of government time and spending.

Calibri is woke?

I guess I’m glad they’re focusing on this rather than breaking something else in society

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

#444

Post by IshKebab »

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…

> Natural language

I said alphanumeric strings not natural language. Things like order codes, authentication codes, license numbers, etc.

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

#445

Post by dghf »

nelox wrote: post #435

Reuters calling the switch a "font" change instead of a typeface change is troubling, though consistent with a society that now casually refers to all pasta as "spaghetti". A typeface is the design; a font is its specific instance. This is basic knowledge, taught to children, houseplants, and most domesticated goats. A simple correction would stop this spiral, but Reuters appears committed to forging a bold new era i…

If all DoS documents are prepared with the same software or software suite (e.g. MS Office), isn't that a distinction without much of a difference? They've gone back to using TNR.ttf instead of Calibri.ttf (or whatever the files are actually called).

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

#446

Post by logifail »

dragonwriter wrote: post #404
logifail wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Calibri was supposedly easier to read by people with disabilities I'd love to know how that was determined. Given that: "If different fonts are best for different people, you might imagine that the solution to the fonts problem would be a preference setting to allow each user to select the font that’s best for them. This solution will not work, for two reasons. First, previous research on user-interface customizati…

> Second, and worse, users don’t know what’s best for them, so they can’t choose the best font, even if they were given the option to customize their fonts. In this study, participants read 14% faster in their fastest font (314 WPM, on average) compared to their most preferred font (275 WPM, on average)" What you actually want to compare speed in the most preferred font to, to show that individual choice is or is not…

> What you actually want to compare [..]

The (ex-)scientist in me is looking for a controlled study, ideally published in a peer reviewed journal, looking at - how can I put this - actual data.

60s of Googling gave me this

The effect of a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic, on reading rate and accuracy https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5629233/

"A single-subject alternating treatment design was used to investigate the extent to which a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic, impacted reading rate or accuracy compared to two commonly used fonts when used with elementary students identified as having dyslexia. OpenDyslexic was compared to Arial and Times New Roman in three reading tasks: (a) letter naming, (b) word reading, and (c) nonsense word reading. Data were analyzed through visual analysis and improvement rate difference, a nonparametric measure of nonoverlap for comparing treatments. Results from this alternating treatment experiment show no improvement in reading rate or accuracy for individual students with dyslexia, as well as the group as a whole. While some students commented that the font was “new” or “different”, none of the participants reported preferring to read material presented in that font. These results indicate there may be no benefit for translating print materials to this font."

Advocacy for people with disabilities is important, but actual data may be even more important.

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

#448

Post by VerifiedReports »

inejge wrote: post #377
VerifiedReports wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Only when used in a context where they can be confused." So what are you supposed to when you're typing along and suddenly you find yourself in such a context? Switch the font of that one occurrence? That document? Your whole publishing effort? Capital "i"s without crossbars aren't capital "i"s. They're lower-case Ls. Any font that doesn't recognize this should be rejected.

> Capital "i"s without crossbars aren't capital "i"s. They're lower-case Ls. Any font that doesn't recognize this should be rejected. You have asserted this at least thrice in the past thirty minutes. What makes you feel so strongly about it? "Rejected" for what purpose? Do you understand that you've just trashed Helvetica, to take a famous example?

What an odd question. I don't like degraded communication or stupidity. Is that enough justification?

Oh wait, I trashed hallowed Helvetica? The Lord's font? The font used on the tablets Moses carried down from Mount Sinai? OMG whatever shall I do.

Meanwhile, the question stands.

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

#450

Post by VerifiedReports »

VerifiedReports wrote: post #362
HPsquared wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come to think of it, I vs l vs 1 vs | is one advantage of serif fonts.

The crossbars on the capital "i" are not serifs. But sans-serif fonts are certainly the prime offenders of rendering a lower-case L in place of the capital "i".

Down-modded by an obscurity apologist.
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