Calibri, which could make documents easier to read for the vision impaired, was apparently installed in 2023 by the department’s then-DEI office. Rubio’s memo has designated Times New Roman as his tenure’s official font, stating it will “restore decorum and professionalism” to documents.
Times New Roman was designed for the print era, and Calibri for onscreen viewing. Onscreen viewing is a lot more common today. Based on that technical characteristic, I’d be kind of inclined to favor Calibri or at least some screen-oriented font.
That being said, screens are also higher-resolution than they were in the past, so the rationale might be less-significant than it once was.
Calibri (/kəˈliːbri/) is a digital sans-serif typeface family in the humanist or modern style. It was designed by Lucas de Groot in 2002–2004 and released to the general public in 2006, with Windows Vista.[3] In Microsoft Office 2007, it replaced Times New Roman as the default font in Word and replaced Arial as the default font in PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook. In Windows 7, it replaced Arial as the default font in WordPad. De Groot described its subtly rounded design as having “a warm and soft character”.[3] In January 2024, the font was replaced by Microsoft’s new bespoke font, Aptos, as the new default Microsoft Office font, after 17 years.[4][5]
I suspect that the Office shift is probably a large factor in moving to Calibri.
That being said, there are many Times New Roman implementations, but it sounds like Calibri is owned by Microsoft, so I’d be kind of inclined to favor something open.
I once wrote code for an elderly researcher who would only review code as a hard copy. I’d bring him stacks of paper and he’d get going with his pen and highlighter. And I’ll grant that the resolution is normally higher on paper than on most displays. I’m viewing this on a laptop screen that’s about 200 ppi. A laser printer is probably printing at a minimum of 300 dpi, maybe 600 or 1200 dpi.
I still think that the few people reading things in print are the exception that proves the rule, though.
Times New Roman was designed for the print era, and Calibri for onscreen viewing. Onscreen viewing is a lot more common today. Based on that technical characteristic, I’d be kind of inclined to favor Calibri or at least some screen-oriented font.
That being said, screens are also higher-resolution than they were in the past, so the rationale might be less-significant than it once was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibri
I suspect that the Office shift is probably a large factor in moving to Calibri.
That being said, there are many Times New Roman implementations, but it sounds like Calibri is owned by Microsoft, so I’d be kind of inclined to favor something open.
In fairness some buggers print their emails
I once wrote code for an elderly researcher who would only review code as a hard copy. I’d bring him stacks of paper and he’d get going with his pen and highlighter. And I’ll grant that the resolution is normally higher on paper than on most displays. I’m viewing this on a laptop screen that’s about 200 ppi. A laser printer is probably printing at a minimum of 300 dpi, maybe 600 or 1200 dpi.
I still think that the few people reading things in print are the exception that proves the rule, though.
In the legal field, a lot is still 100% paper. And not just for the older people.
I personally think that serif fonts are easier to read, especially with differentiating between l and I.
I use Google’s Noto Sans as my default browser sans-serif font. It does a better job having a different capital-I and lower-case-l than does Calibri:
http://www.identifont.com/differences?first=Noto+Sans&second=Calibri