Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri • Hacker News Board

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

#581

Post by Sunspark » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 2:32 PM UTC

cromulent wrote: post #487

Fnoord wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He passed away ten years ago, the glasses were custom-made in 70's or so. He'd close one eye and use the other (better suited for this). He'd have tremors, including in the eyes. Reading made him very tired, eventually a friend would read complex beta literature before him. To me (as kid) the glasses felt like a huge looking glass. A friend of my parents also made a custom card deck, with huge symbols and letters. Th…

Sounds like he had lots of good people around him helping him. The technical aspects you mention are important. I have diplopia, and also close one eye. It gets worse in the evenings. I love paper books and own many, but all my reading now is on a Kindle, with a huge font. It makes it so much easier.

Have you tried eye-patching as a therapy to train the non-dominant eye?

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

#582

Post by nimbius » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 2:33 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #523

LucasFonts wrote: post #475

Our studio, LucasFonts, designed Calibri. Here are our CEO Luc(as) de Groot’s thoughts on the matter: The decision to abandon Calibri on the grounds of it being a so-called “wasteful diversity font” is both amusing and regrettable. Calibri was specifically designed to enhance readability on modern computer screens and was selected by Microsoft in 2007 to replace Times New Roman as the default font in the Office suite…

I think we all can agree that Comic Sans MS reflects the current US government best, both spiritually and aesthetically.

i tend to find the kerning issues noted by the calibri team are moot. most Times New Roman is perfectly legible with careful observation and maybe a fresh cup of covfefe.

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

#583

Post by gjvc » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 2:34 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #35

mitchbob wrote: post #30

> Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Biden-era move to the sans serif typeface “wasteful,” casting the return to Times New Roman as part of a push to stamp out diversity efforts. https://archive.ph/2025.12.10-001235/https://www.nytimes.com...

To actually reduce waste, they could have switched to a narrower typeface, such as Roboto Condensed. At least it would save some paper occasionally.

Roboto Condensed is excellent. It saves space so more words can be read with each eye movement (saccades) and is very clear.

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

#584

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 2:35 PM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #299

You know what they always say…never waste a good crisis. This is our opportunity to tell our friends that neither Times New Roman nor Calibri are very good fonts. If they’re using Word—and they definitely are—Aptos is a better choice than either. If they want to look fancy and have a serif in their life, maybe they could try a little Cambria. But if they have a twinkle in their eye and seem like they want to learn, t…

[deleted]

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

#585

Post by Sunspark » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #175

cafard wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For about ten years I worked for composition shops, and eventually for a maker of typesetting systems. Through blurred eyes I could tell TNR from Baskerville from Garamond from Janson from ... Some of these fonts I can still identify. But I have no idea what font was used in the book I just finished reading or the book that I'm returning to later today. My main question about a font is whether I can read it with old…

My old eyes really wish more people used something like New Century Schoolbook.

They still do. It's the required font for all US Supreme Court legal work.

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

#586

Post by gjvc » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #299

You know what they always say…never waste a good crisis. This is our opportunity to tell our friends that neither Times New Roman nor Calibri are very good fonts. If they’re using Word—and they definitely are—Aptos is a better choice than either. If they want to look fancy and have a serif in their life, maybe they could try a little Cambria. But if they have a twinkle in their eye and seem like they want to learn, t…

it's a joy https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto and especially https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto+Condensed

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

#587

Post by jurjo » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

For a moment I thought it had something to do with "Cuadernillos Rubio" [1]. They are small workbooks quite common in Spain for kids to learn how to write. However, the font they use is not Times New Roman...

[1] https://www.amazon.es/-/en/gp/product/8417427627?ref_=dbs_m_...

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

#588

Post by thaumasiotes » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

shagie wrote: post #309

WhyOhWhyQ wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. The Wikipedia page for Times New Roman has a pretty fun blurb printed in the newspaper when they first implemented it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_New_Roman?st_source=ai_m...

One of the things that image shows is the slightly higher density of the Times version (compare row by row) allowing the paper to put more text on a page and thus reduce some of the costs. This appears to be done by increasing the height of the lower case letters in the Times side while reducing the height of the capital letters at the same time. This then was also combined with a reduction in the size of some of the…

> the slightly higher density of the Times version (compare row by row)

I don't think that's the comparison you want to draw? The rows appear to hold very similar amounts of text.

But the rows on the left, in Times New Roman, are shorter than the rows on the right. So even though "one row" holds the same amount of text, one column-inch of Times New Roman holds more rows.

The Times New Roman looks more readable to me because it has thicker strokes. This isn't really an issue in a digital font; you can't accidentally apply a thin layer of black to a pixel and let the color underneath show through.

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

#589

Post by Sunspark » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

chrismorgan wrote: post #289

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 pop…

The Croscore fonts ARE the Liberation fonts, just renamed.

I keep both for naming compatibility and also because the 1.0 Liberation versions had truetype hinting (2.0 and up did not).

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

#590

Post by adolph » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #523

LucasFonts wrote: post #475

Our studio, LucasFonts, designed Calibri. Here are our CEO Luc(as) de Groot’s thoughts on the matter: The decision to abandon Calibri on the grounds of it being a so-called “wasteful diversity font” is both amusing and regrettable. Calibri was specifically designed to enhance readability on modern computer screens and was selected by Microsoft in 2007 to replace Times New Roman as the default font in the Office suite…

I think we all can agree that Comic Sans MS reflects the current US government best, both spiritually and aesthetically.

Your comment may be in jest but there is some evidence that "easier to read" does not benefit "retain what was read."

  And that brings us back to these ugly fonts. Because their shapes are 
  unfamiliar, because they are less legible, they make the mind work a little 
  harder; the slight frisson of Comic Sans wakes us up or at least prevents us 
  from leaning on the usual efficiencies. “The complex fonts . . . function 
  like an alarm,” Alter writes. They signal “that we need to recruit additional 
  mental resources to overcome that sense of difficulty.”

https://lithub.com/the-ugliness-of-comic-sans-has-a-practica...