4 ms·

One day I'll come across a monospace font that will look & feel as good as the Bloomberg Terminal font.

by maxaf 10y ago

elcapitan 10y ago
Interesting - had to look that up. Here's a Quora post about it: https://www.quora.com/What-font-is-used-in-Bloomberg-Terminal https://www.quora.com/What-font-is-used-in-Bloomberg-Termina... . It's designed by Matthew Carter, the designer of Georgia and Verdana, he's an expert on screen-readable fonts. The interesting thing is that one part of the optimization for finance was all those special fraction glyphs. I have never seen such weird fractions in actual use, I would have thought people use normal decimal numbers everywhere.
- maxaf 10y ago
  When I worked at Bloomberg, the origins of that font weren't a mystery. I used it on my company-issued Mac and loved it. Whatever they paid for it, the price was definitely worth it. I don't suppose I'll ever find a suitable replacement, which also means that I jump at every opportunity to try out a new monospace font. I currently have 7 in my .Xdefaults, and these are just the ones I kinda-sorta liked and hadn't deleted.
  - soperj 10y ago
    Why don't you just continue to use the terminal font then? That Quora link ^ made it looked like you could get a copy.
    - maxaf 10y ago
      I've considered doing just that, but it wouldn't be the right thing to do. I don't want to make money using something that technically isn't mine to use.
      - soperj 10y ago
        What's the technicality? Typefaces are exempt from copyright protection.
        elcapitan 10y ago
        Technically they are licensed as software, so they are not copyright-free.
        maxaf 10y ago
        As @elcapitan said, licensing is the same as for software. Fonts are intellectual property (IP), just like most other intangible products of R&D. It is too bad, of course, and my usual opinion about IP applies. However, we don't live in an ideal world, and many of us are stuck following rules we don't agree with. What I'd personally find more interesting is a first-principles research effort to find out what makes some fonts so much better than others. My gut tells me that such an effort might yield, as a side effect, a formal method for creating such fonts that are especially well suited for a specific purpose.
        JonathonW 10y ago
        Typeface designs are not copyrightable-- there's nothing stopping me from looking at (for example) Futura, redrawing it, and selling the redrawn version myself. (Coincidentally, Futura itself, as a popular pre-digital era typeface, has been independently digitized several times by different companies.) Font files, meaning the specific binary files implementing a typeface on your computer, most certainly are copyrightable and licensable. If I were to purchase Myriad from Adobe, I couldn't just hand that font over to you-- that would be against the license agreement and would qualify as software piracy. (This is all based on US copyright; YMMV if you're elsewhere.)
      - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        Out of curiosity, I just installed Bloomberg Professional (all 2GB+ of it; contrary to the Quora post, the font package won't run by itself, you have to install the entire program), copied the fonts, and uninstalled it. At no point was I shown any sort of licensing agreement or terms of service. I fell no moral obligation to refrain from local use of some fonts that Bloomberg offered me for free.
  - elcapitan 10y ago
    Which is kind of the opposite experience many people have who work at a company that has its 'company font' which they are supposed to use, but nobody likes to, because it's just print-optimized for design etc, but not screen-optimized for normal work use, and thus makes it a pain to edit documents.
    - maxaf 10y ago
      It's one of those rare situations when programmers can benefit from the development of a product meant to please an entirely orthogonal audience: uber-picky finance professionals who stare at screens all day. Life is fascinating, isn't it?
      - elcapitan 10y ago
        Absolutely.
- Fiahil 10y ago
  Indeed. He did a Ted talk on font design 2 years ago. Very interesting: http://www.ted.com/talks/matthew_carter_my_life_in_typefaces http://www.ted.com/talks/matthew_carter_my_life_in_typefaces
- bboreham 10y ago
  > I would have thought people use normal decimal numbers everywhere. US Government Bonds, the touchstone of the core Bloomberg user, are traded in 256ths of a dollar. The notation there, however, is not fractions. The number shown is whole dollars, then 32nds, then 8ths of a 32nd; except 4/8ths is shown as '+' Fun times...
  - elcapitan 10y ago
    Weird enough :) Thanks!
noir_lord 10y ago
Tracked it down (had to install Windows in a VM, install Bloomberg and then the font patch). I agree it's a lovely monospace font for terminal work.

One day I'll come across a monospace font that will look & feel as good as the Bloomberg Terminal font.

by maxaf 10y ago

One day I'll come across a monospace font that will look & feel as good as the Bloomberg Terminal font.

Interesting - had to look that up. Here's a Quora post about it: https://www.quora.com/What-font-is-used-in-Bloomberg-Terminal https://www.quora.com/What-font-is-used-in-Bloomberg-Termina... . It's designed by Matthew Carter, the designer of Georgia and Verdana, he's an expert on screen-readable fonts. The interesting thing is that one part of the optimization for finance was all those special fraction glyphs. I have never seen such weird fractions in actual use, I would have thought people use normal decimal numbers everywhere.

maxaf 10y ago
When I worked at Bloomberg, the origins of that font weren't a mystery. I used it on my company-issued Mac and loved it. Whatever they paid for it, the price was definitely worth it. I don't suppose I'll ever find a suitable replacement, which also means that I jump at every opportunity to try out a new monospace font. I currently have 7 in my .Xdefaults, and these are just the ones I kinda-sorta liked and hadn't deleted.
- soperj 10y ago
  Why don't you just continue to use the terminal font then? That Quora link ^ made it looked like you could get a copy.
  - maxaf 10y ago
    I've considered doing just that, but it wouldn't be the right thing to do. I don't want to make money using something that technically isn't mine to use.
    - soperj 10y ago
      What's the technicality? Typefaces are exempt from copyright protection.
      - elcapitan 10y ago
        Technically they are licensed as software, so they are not copyright-free.
      - maxaf 10y ago
        As @elcapitan said, licensing is the same as for software. Fonts are intellectual property (IP), just like most other intangible products of R&D. It is too bad, of course, and my usual opinion about IP applies. However, we don't live in an ideal world, and many of us are stuck following rules we don't agree with. What I'd personally find more interesting is a first-principles research effort to find out what makes some fonts so much better than others. My gut tells me that such an effort might yield, as a side effect, a formal method for creating such fonts that are especially well suited for a specific purpose.
      - JonathonW 10y ago
        Typeface designs are not copyrightable-- there's nothing stopping me from looking at (for example) Futura, redrawing it, and selling the redrawn version myself. (Coincidentally, Futura itself, as a popular pre-digital era typeface, has been independently digitized several times by different companies.) Font files, meaning the specific binary files implementing a typeface on your computer, most certainly are copyrightable and licensable. If I were to purchase Myriad from Adobe, I couldn't just hand that font over to you-- that would be against the license agreement and would qualify as software piracy. (This is all based on US copyright; YMMV if you're elsewhere.)
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      Out of curiosity, I just installed Bloomberg Professional (all 2GB+ of it; contrary to the Quora post, the font package won't run by itself, you have to install the entire program), copied the fonts, and uninstalled it. At no point was I shown any sort of licensing agreement or terms of service. I fell no moral obligation to refrain from local use of some fonts that Bloomberg offered me for free.
- elcapitan 10y ago
  Which is kind of the opposite experience many people have who work at a company that has its 'company font' which they are supposed to use, but nobody likes to, because it's just print-optimized for design etc, but not screen-optimized for normal work use, and thus makes it a pain to edit documents.
  - maxaf 10y ago
    It's one of those rare situations when programmers can benefit from the development of a product meant to please an entirely orthogonal audience: uber-picky finance professionals who stare at screens all day. Life is fascinating, isn't it?
    - elcapitan 10y ago
      Absolutely.
Fiahil 10y ago
Indeed. He did a Ted talk on font design 2 years ago. Very interesting: http://www.ted.com/talks/matthew_carter_my_life_in_typefaces http://www.ted.com/talks/matthew_carter_my_life_in_typefaces
bboreham 10y ago
> I would have thought people use normal decimal numbers everywhere. US Government Bonds, the touchstone of the core Bloomberg user, are traded in 256ths of a dollar. The notation there, however, is not fractions. The number shown is whole dollars, then 32nds, then 8ths of a 32nd; except 4/8ths is shown as '+' Fun times...
- elcapitan 10y ago
  Weird enough :) Thanks!

noir_lord 10y ago

Tracked it down (had to install Windows in a VM, install Bloomberg and then the font patch). I agree it's a lovely monospace font for terminal work.