Avoid using the core operating system fonts in printed documents.
On Windows, that includes Arial, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Comic Sans, Constantia, Courier, Georgia, Helvetica, any flavor of Lucida, Palatino, Trebuchet, and Verdana. On the Mac, that includes Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Palatino, Skia, and Verdana. Subject to a few exceptions, you should also avoid Times New Roman.
Operating system typefaces have three problems:
- They’re overexposed. The fact that they’re included with the operating system for free means that people who are lazy and cheap tend to use them. You don’t want to be lumped in with those people.
- They’re not very good. This is less a problem on the Mac. But certain typefaces included with Windows are among the most god-awful on the planet. I don’t want to name names, but my least favorite rhymes with Barial.
- They’re optimized for screen display, not printing. The Mac and Windows system fonts have been meticulously engineered to look good on screen (for instance, website text). But often, that means that subtle design details have been sanded off, and the typeface looks clunky on the printed page (e.g. Georgia).
Corollary to #3: the operating system fonts are usually just fine for on-screen use, such as PowerPoint presentations or websites. But stay away from Comic Sans for any purpose.
But if you must use an OS font for a document to print, what would be your suggestion(s)?
New Century Schoolbook
A typographer recommending *against* using Helvetica? And similarly charging that Helvetica is optimized for screen display?
I’d argue that the over-exposure argument only really applies to gimmicky faces. A typeface with a gimmick relies on its uniqueness. Otherwise there are lots of faces that are used quite a lot because they are classic and well-crafted.
A fair point, but the Helvetica that comes with your operating system is not the Helvetica that graphic designers know and love–it’s a unique digitization of the font, specially designed and engineered for lower-resolution output (300 dpi and below).
Back in the day, I printed letterpress projects using foundry Helvetica and Palatino–yep, lead type–and they are very different from the operating system versions. I also worked on numerous typefaces for use in operating systems, so I can attest to the design compromises that those fonts require.
mmm… there are some very good fonts on windows and mac. Georgia, tahoma, helvetica, cambria…
Hoefler Text supplied with Mac OS (since 7.5) is very good. It has a rich set of characters and variants (ligatures, text ornaments, initial and terminal swashes etc.); in particular genuine small capitals and old-style figures, although not all these characters may be available in all apps. You can see these variations through the very useful Typography palette in TextEdit (available through the Fonts palette).
I’ll give Hoefler Text a pass because I like Jonathan Hoefler.
Speaking of type, it would be cool if your site had a colophon.
[...] I just found Typography for Lawyers and cannot recommend reading it highly enough, whatever your profession. The website is a straight-forward and accessible guide to typographic considerations. And I suppose I can point a friend to this in the future when he or she asks me what font to use for a résumé. Sorry, Charlie, I guess you shouldn’t use Helvetica or Palatino. [...]
You put the kibbosh on the Word 07 fonts (the C-fonts…Calibri, Candara, Constantia, Cambria.) I don’t think these are bad fonts (they aren’t amazing, but they shouldn’t be lumped in with Arial. And I rather have Calibri as the default Word font in lieu of Times New Roman.) Can you comment on those four specifically?
True, the Word 07 fonts are better than most operating system fonts, but they still suffer from the same problem of being optimized for screen display, not for printing. If you print any of the PDF samples on this site that use better text fonts and compare a sample of Cambria or Constantia, I think you’ll see what I mean.
I haven’t done it for years, but back when I had too much time on my hands I would scroll through the options and try to pick my “favorite” font. I pretty much always ended up with Palatino. Could you say a little more about why you would favor something over it?
Let me give full respect to Palatino. Designer Hermann Zapf’s original design (from 1950) is very lovely. But the version on your computer is not. Like Times New Roman, Palatino has been demolished by poor digital versions and relentless overuse.
If you really like Palatino, try Palatino Nova, Hermann Zapf’s update of the original design (from 2005—55 years (!) after the original). Much better than the one that ships with your operating system.
This site has a lot of interesting information on it, but is it really necessary to turn such a large portion of it into an advertisement for commercial fonts?
Most of the tips here don’t require you to buy a new font — you can use whatever you’ve got.
But with fonts, as with most other things, you get what you pay for. And if you want the best quality, you have to pay for it.
Even then, fonts are cheap. You can buy a super nice font family for $100-200. It will never go obsolete and you can use it every day. Compared to the other ways lawyers like to spend their technology dollars, I think that’s a pretty good deal.
Super!
It’s so interesting for us! Thanks!
What’s the relevance of fonts being “overexposed”? Typography, especially in the legal context, is about utility: what works best to convey information. Advising clean, efficient typography is one thing, and it’s smart and helpful. But since when is our job to be eye-catchingly unique?
It is true that operating system fonts are overexposed. Thus, to the extent an attorney might say to herself “I’m going to set this appellate brief in Trebuchet, a font with a fresh, 21st-century look!” I would say: you are mistaken.
But the functional reasons to avoid OS fonts are #2 (they’re ugly) and #3 (they don’t print well). These considerations have nothing to do with being “eye-catchingly unique” and everything to do with being clean and readable. And I hope you would agree that part of “our job” as attorneys is to produce clean and readable documents. Print out your next brief in Trebuchet and tell me how long you can read it before your eyes bleed and you scream in agony.
” I don’t want to name names, but my least favorite rhymes with Barial.”
I enjoyed this as well.
Thank you for the clarifications you have made in these comments. When I first read this page’s content I balked just like some, to your nixing Helvetica in the same breath as “Barial”. Indeed screen-optimization has surely diluted as opposed to distilled the essences of OS fonts.
Also I’m sure you are well aware but I’ll say anyway, Verdana was never intended to be printed at all, and is as far as I know the very first display-only font designed.
I would also like to thank you for assembling all this information in such a useful way, our office has now added your site to our list of argument-settling resources.
I think you’re wrong on Helvetica and Palatino. They are not optimized for the screen, and the versions that come with OS X are suitable for production work.
I would change this part to “avoid bogus fonts” like Arial, and “avoid screen fonts.”
Helvetica will never be overexposed. Also, for lawyers particularly, it’s better to stick to a very small number of fonts, and not try to get too creative.
I appreciate the advocacy, but your comment is misleading. True, Helvetica and Palatino were not originally designed for the screen. But the versions of Helvetica and Palatino bundled with the Windows and Mac operating systems are optimized for the screen. To that end, they diverge from the original designs in numerous ways.