Otherwise I think Times might stick around for awhile, especially now when more macs are being sold (incl. the spearate licensing issue) and windows is bringing out a new set of standard fonts.

Who knows maybe years down the road we might be able to tell who uses what OS just by looking at their printed text…

Uma questo que tem provocado alguma preocupao entre os geeks a iminente morte da fonte Times New Roman por parte da Microsoft….

If it can replace Arial, that would be ‘a good thing’.

Personally I think that serif fonts are easier to read on the printed page, especially for pages and pages of text.

Actually, I do that all the time. My friends tell me I’m elitist, but I say I’m just type-conscious.

Wrod on teh stret is that Times New Roman is out, Calibri is in for MS Office 2007. There’s not much to be done about it, but I’m still disturbed that Microsoft has dominion over default typefaces since everyone uses……

If I’m writing on the computer, I always choose a sans serif font. I need to be looking at a draft, not something that has the appearance of finished text.

I disagree, as a designer every typeface choice needs to be rationalised. There should absolutely be a reason for choosing the typeface you do. At the universities I have studied at/visited/lectured at you would not do well without being able to explain your typeface choice.

You mean, like back before Microsoft Office for Mac?

(Check out the link– the whole collection of typefaces is very appealing to me. The only gripe I have is that they all have vague latin-sounding Cal/Cam/Can/Con names.)

We generally filter about 600 spam comments a day before they reach the blog. A few still slip though. Pesky blighters.

Robert

Vive Times New Roman!

That’s interesting. How come TNR is the only font you can read? If you don’t mind, I’d love to hear more about why this is.

I don’t think Microsoft is dropping TNR, merely using Calibri as the default font in Office.

Personally I think that serif fonts are easier to read on the printed page, especially for pages and pages of text.
Greetings from Poland

I agree with Jonathan Wing, though — I shudder every time I look at Times New Roman. Why? Several reasons:

1. It’s like bellbottoms and wood panelling — it’s old and there are better alternatives.
2. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not as readable as most people think. It’s true that serif fonts are, by and large, easier to read for 12pt-14pt text than sans-serif fonts, but Garamond and Georgia (two other serif fonts) periodically score much higher on readability tests than TNR en masse.
3. As mentioned in the linked article about The Secret Lives of Fonts, Georgia/Garamond/Calisto are more professional and give off a cleaner look — the serifs remain to retain the sharp image, but they are considered more classy than Times New Roman.
4. Some people say that Times New Roman should be used because it is universal and everyone has it. Technically, every Windows PC with an operating system of Windows 98 or later has Georgia natively installed, so this isn’t really a valid argument for TNR.

To summarize, I’m glad they gave TNR the boot from default font in Office 2007. I’m proud to say that in five years as a web developer, I’ve never willingly used TNR as the font on a website before, and I’ve successfully convinced one of my TNR-only profs to reconsider. TNR is something I’ve been grumbling over for a long time, and so has everyone with any smidgen of aesthetic sense, so go Microsoft! in taking this beast from our hands.