- Jul 29, 2001
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The end of an era for Times New Roman?
by Andrew Whitacre
Times New Roman: it?s the Coke, the Kleenex, the Xerox, the Cheerios of typefaces. Times is a given. It?s natural. It?s expected. No one would ever look at a paper or article or memo and say, ?Ew, why?d you choose Times New Roman?? Times is so ubiquitous that it?s invisible?it?s the Mao-poster of types.
How?d Times reach such saturation? Simple. It?s the default font on the world?s dominant word-processing program, Microsoft Word.
But no longer. . . .
Earlier this year, Microsoft released betas of Office 2007, and the first thing reviewers noticed, besides the new interface, was that Times New Roman had been deposed as the default font with something called . . . Calibri?
This article at Poynter Online provides an excellent overview of the new fonts included in Office 2007, including Calibri. It is indeed a big change: developers of MS Office have come to agree that sans-serifs like Calibri are truly easier to read for large amounts of on-screen text.
But what will happen to Times New Roman? In ten years, will it be just another term-paper alternative? Will instructors? syllabi accept Calibri, or will they stand firm with Times because so many Word documents are still printed out to be read? Would you ever write a paper in Calibri because it?s easier to read on a screen, and then change it to Times at the last moment for your print reader? What about Phil?s theory about The Secret Lives of Fonts?is Calibri so pretty that universities will experience a round of aesthetics-inspired grade-inflation? And wtf is up with the new fonts? not being available on Macs without a separate license? In general, what are we in for if the font-king is dead? source
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