3 ms·

I'm with you on the sans-serif (it's french!). A lot of designers dislike Verdana, but I (as a programmer) have never been exactly sure why. Maybe someone can

I'm with you on the sans-serif (it's french!). A lot of designers dislike Verdana, but I (as a programmer) have never been exactly sure why. Maybe someone can explain? I find it's readable and neat, even when small. The Georgia font seems cheesier to me, but (once again), I'm not a designer.

gb 17y ago
Verdana is designed for small type on monitors, so above about ~12px it becomes quite ugly and the kerning doesn't work as well.
briansmith 17y ago
> A lot of designers dislike Verdana, but I (as a programmer) have never been exactly sure why * Verdana isn't designed for ClearType, and it tends to look bold when ClearType is on. * Verdana has no small caps. * Verdana has unusual (some say backwards) quotes: "''". (The HN comments aren't in Verdana, at least on my system, so the previous quotes probably don't look bad). * Verdana has a large x-height that requires extra leading, and each character is unusually wide compared to other faces. If you use Verdana then your properly-set document will be noticably larger in area. This makes it unusable when you need to show lots of information in a small area. It also reduces online readability somewhat, because it increases the amount of scrolling the user needs to do. * Because of Verdana's unusual metrics, you cannot nicely mix it (inline) with anything except Tahoma, Georgia, and Consolas. * Verdana doesn't implement all the dashes (en, em, minus, etc.) well. At least one of them is missing, and the ones that are there don't look that great. In particular, IIRC, the em-dash looks a lot like an en-dash, which is exactly what you don't want. * Verdana only has lining figures; there are no old-style figures. * It was designed for on-screen use, not for print use. IMO, the x-height and character width impairs readability on the printed page. (However, I remember some study that said that term papers printed in Georgia tended to get higher grades than those printed in Times New Roman, so...) Microsoft's ClearType Font Collection (the C* fonts) are much better in almost every way that I can think of, including the above areas. The main problems I've found with the C* fonts are: (1) they don't mix well with the default Thai font on Windows which is bold like Verdana when ClearType is on, and (2) they don't mix well with Consolas, because Consolas has a similar x-height to Verdana, Tahoma, and Georgia.
- dgabriel 17y ago
  That was excellent. Thanks.

gb 17y ago

Verdana is designed for small type on monitors, so above about ~12px it becomes quite ugly and the kerning doesn't work as well.

briansmith 17y ago

> A lot of designers dislike Verdana, but I (as a programmer) have never been exactly sure why * Verdana isn't designed for ClearType, and it tends to look bold when ClearType is on. * Verdana has no small caps. * Verdana has unusual (some say backwards) quotes: "''". (The HN comments aren't in Verdana, at least on my system, so the previous quotes probably don't look bad). * Verdana has a large x-height that requires extra leading, and each character is unusually wide compared to other faces. If you use Verdana then your properly-set document will be noticably larger in area. This makes it unusable when you need to show lots of information in a small area. It also reduces online readability somewhat, because it increases the amount of scrolling the user needs to do. * Because of Verdana's unusual metrics, you cannot nicely mix it (inline) with anything except Tahoma, Georgia, and Consolas. * Verdana doesn't implement all the dashes (en, em, minus, etc.) well. At least one of them is missing, and the ones that are there don't look that great. In particular, IIRC, the em-dash looks a lot like an en-dash, which is exactly what you don't want. * Verdana only has lining figures; there are no old-style figures. * It was designed for on-screen use, not for print use. IMO, the x-height and character width impairs readability on the printed page. (However, I remember some study that said that term papers printed in Georgia tended to get higher grades than those printed in Times New Roman, so...) Microsoft's ClearType Font Collection (the C* fonts) are much better in almost every way that I can think of, including the above areas. The main problems I've found with the C* fonts are: (1) they don't mix well with the default Thai font on Windows which is bold like Verdana when ClearType is on, and (2) they don't mix well with Consolas, because Consolas has a similar x-height to Verdana, Tahoma, and Georgia.

dgabriel 17y ago
That was excellent. Thanks.