2007 MS Change to 11pt Calibri Default

[doitmyself]

With risk of being laughed at, this is purely a discussion of academic/philosophical nature. It's not a "first world problem". I'm genuinely curious.

In 2007 Microsoft changed their default font from 12pt Times New Roman/10 pt.Arial(faux Helvetica)to 11pt. Calibri. Reasons cited by MS was that Calibri was more suited to the takeover of electronic media vs. print media. It looked better on screens and would save paper (11pt.)

I grew up with the iconic rules of Times New Roman(TNR) serif or Arial/Helvetica for sans serif. Some university professors still mandate only TNR for all papers. Both were good across different operation systems (MS, MAC,etc.).

- Did you guys just go with the flow and use the default Calibri without any question?

- How many stayed with the old ways? I'm talking basic business use, not publications like books, web sites, newspaper, etc. and true type design activities(those guys seem to loath the idea of default fonts.)

- Anyone actively despise that MS was trying to force people into their way of thinking (LOL, that's not a new concept)? Lead the sheeple to Calibri?

I imagine most people didn't even flinch. I'm tied to academia, so the change was interesting for me.

Again, this is a fun question for me to gauge how the real world reacted, or not. I won't be surprised if most give no thought to this, especially younger people.

 

[HerrStig]

Doesn't matter what MicroGates h as to say, the courts have their own rules, and the state and Federal courts can't even agree on what is "required" in submissions. Such petty dictators. Cold blooded bureaucrats sitting in their little offices.

 

[Ethan1]

Calibri, to me, was more repulsive than the Ribbon interface.

I seem to recall that there was some controversy around TNR, wasn't there? Didn't M$ blatantly steal it from Apple?

 

[Pop_Rivit]

Originally Posted By: Ethan1

I seem to recall that there was some controversy around TNR, wasn't there? Didn't M$ blatantly steal it from Apple?


No. Times New Roman font has been around since the early 1930's. It was designed and used by Britain's "The Times" newspaper as their custom typeface (hence the name).

There are two very similar versions, one created by Monotype and one created by Linotype. The Monotype version is Times New Roman, and the Linotype version is Times Roman.

Quite frankly I don't care for Times New Roman as a font-it was fine for newsprint when the font needed to be compressed to fit more letters on each line. But there are better choices for serif style fonts today, especially for electronic media. Anyone that still uses Times New Roman isn't making a font choice, rather it's the absence of any thought behind a font choice.

 

[doitmyself]

Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
Anyone that still uses Times New Roman isn't making a font choice, rather it's the absence of any thought behind a font choice.

Thank you for clarifying the exact point of my original question. You nailed it, spot on. In day to day business activities, the majority of people don't care to become educated in typography. They want to sit down and create business documents that can be used by anybody, in-house or out, without putting any thought into it. They are not going to dissect the difference between Helvetica (acceptable) and Arial (despised) like professional typographers do.

 

[Ethan1]

Originally Posted By: doitmyself
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
Anyone that still uses Times New Roman isn't making a font choice, rather it's the absence of any thought behind a font choice.

Thank you for clarifying the exact point of my original question. You nailed it, spot on. In day to day business activities, the majority of people don't care to become educated in typography. They want to sit down and create business documents that can be used by anybody, in-house or out, without putting any thought into it. They are not going to dissect the difference between Helvetica (acceptable) and Arial (despised) like professional typographers do.



Since "the majority of people" can't tell the difference, Arial is just as "acceptable" as Helvetica from a practical standpoint. 99% of people couldn't name Helvetica if you put it in front of them, but if you put them in front of Word, they'll go straight to Arial for a san-serif; they know the MS knock-off.

Actually, I'm curious to know what percentage of people are unable to identify a serif or sans-serif font...

 

[Ethan1]

Originally Posted By: doitmyself
I won't be surprised if most give no thought to this, especially younger people.


I wouldn't be surprised if most "older people" could barely format a document in a word processor; actually, I'm fairly certain that's the case. I've watched in frustration as "older people" (who are otherwise rational and capable) suddenly freeze up when asked to think through a simple task on a computer. All logic and self-sufficiency fly out the window.

"Younger people" are the ones who are required to follow their professors' requirements for essays, so they've probably all changed a font before. For this year's cohort of college freshman, computers were already almost ubiquitous when they were born, which is alarming to consider.

 

[Alfred_B]

TNR for most documents. I prefer Callibri to Arial. I used to use Helvetica a lot, I do not think Arial comes close to Helvetica.

Some of my specialized tasks are done in Gills Sans or Lucida Console.

 

[spackard]

I have a preference for whichever font which will, when printed then OCR'ed back in, results in the greatest accuracy, especially the least mis-interpreted ells vs ones. Otherwise it's not something that's on the radar, except for trying to read something on another OS whose implementers may be trying to make an egotistical point so leave MS fonts out and poorly rendered with substitutes. Seems like the font wars have died down a bit from what they were.

The last time I cared about font choices was as a fresh-out. I chose fonts from the nearest Laserjet with a library of font cartridges that was quite expansive at the time, only to later find out no other printer in the building had the cartridge and I had to redo the entire document to the least common denominator, Helvetica 12 point. I could use some of the character codes in the 128-255 bit range to draw tables, which was very impressive back then, but they only printed out with a suitable font cartridge.