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375 points italophil | 8 comments | | HN request time: 0.725s | source | bottom
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treetalker ◴[] No.46213053[source]
Butterick on TNR:

(https://practicaltypography.com/times-new-roman-alternatives...)

> When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or advertisement, it connotes apathy. It says, “I submitted to the font of least resistance.” Times New Roman is not a font choice so much as the absence of a font choice, like the blackness of deep space is not a color. To look at Times New Roman is to gaze into the void.

> If you have a choice about using Times New Roman, please stop. Use something else.

And on Calibri:

(https://practicaltypography.com/calibri-alternatives.html)

> Like Cambria, Calibri works well on screen. But in print, its rounded corners make body text look soft. If you need a clean sans serif font, you have better options.

- - -

To telegraph an identity, TNR is a good choice for this administration; so, credit where due, well played. Still, I would have gone with Comic Sans.

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1. nalnq ◴[] No.46213082[source]
The Times New Roman commentary could have been true back when it was written, but now Calibri is the default for Microsoft Word, and has been for a long while (almost 20 years). So choosing Calibri is the path of least resistance.
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2. Zafira ◴[] No.46213278[source]
Aptos has been the default font for Microsoft Word since 2023.
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3. pests ◴[] No.46213592[source]
With all the fanfare made over Calibri back when it was announced, TIL about Aptos
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4. adzm ◴[] No.46213757{3}[source]
Aptos is slightly wider and taller but looks very very similar to calibri, especially calibri a point larger.
5. rob74 ◴[] No.46215032[source]
So now Times New Roman not only looks uninspired and bland, but also dated? Yeah, I would say that's a good fit...
6. 0cf8612b2e1e ◴[] No.46225801{3}[source]
I enjoyed the argument that this is going to open up a new time point for digital forensics. Many people have doctored documents pretending to have made them in the past. Except they did not realize that the vintage software used font X, but the modern default is now Y. There have been a few court cases where essentially someone is able to say, “This font is clearly Calibri which did not exist at the time this document was supposedly printed.”

If you are a Deep Space 9 fan, this is where you get to scream, “It’s a fake!!!”

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7. anonymars ◴[] No.46226535{4}[source]
Example: https://valawyersweekly.com/2023/04/03/font-choice-exposes-f...
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8. pests ◴[] No.46228520{5}[source]
The more famous example being the Pakistani Prime Minister forging documents in Calibri dated before its release.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-40571708