Friday, January 20, 2023

A little bit about fonts

Posted as a comment reply here, too, as AC.

• Arial at 10pt/13.5px is the best reading font so far -- this at 150% scale with a 1920x1080 display resolution. It is the most optimal font to absorb long texts on screen, but is relatively tiny on paper, where I'd enjoy Times New Roman. Apple Garamond and the 80% condensed Garamond would be luxury.

• Chicago (found in early/classic Apple Macs) has great readability and the necessary compact size on early Mac display resolutions that are now smallish. To this day, it remains stylish and sufficiently futuristic, but not in the gaudy style of futurism that was envisioned with Westminster and Data 70, which were prominent in the 1970s and 1980s sci-fi flicks.

• Verdana at 9pt is the best for even smaller-sized text without losing legibility.

My favourite tall sans-serif font is Abadi MT Condensed Light. It's similar to News Gothic, but is taller and thinner.

Of open-source fonts:

In terms of readability, Helvetica is one of the best sans-serif fonts on Linux. Linux Libertine G is good, and Linux Libertine Display G takes the cake, but with 1.15 pt line height, bugs and all.

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