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Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

(www.reuters.com)
386 points italophil | 2 comments | 10 Dec 25 00:08 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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amluto ◴[11 Dec 25 10:47 UTC] No.46229828[source]▶
IMO Calibri and Times New Roman are both poor choices: they are not free. The US Government’s works are not generally subject to copyright, and IMO it’s rather obnoxious for their fonts to be restricted. Also, Calibri is specifically a Microsoft font, and maybe the government should be a bit less beholden to Microsoft.

IMO the government should pick something available under an appropriate free license or commission a new font for the purpose.

(I personally much prefer Times New Roman to Calibri for printed documents, but that’s neither here nor there.)

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1. AlanYx ◴[11 Dec 25 15:17 UTC] No.46232416[source]▶
This is my view as well. That being said, Time New Roman is marginally better because there are several good, modern open source alternatives with the same metrics that can be substituted. And there's good tool support virtually everywhere for those alternatives, like in TeX.

There is a metric-compatible open alternative to Calibri (Carlito) but it seems more vulnerable to lawyer shenanigans and doesn't have extensive tool support.

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2. FinnKuhn ◴[11 Dec 25 16:26 UTC] No.46233430[source]▶
Which Times New Roman alternatives would you recommend?