7 ms·

Maybe if they gave a shit about typography they would fix the bug in Word that prevents it from embedding more than one style of a given font: > Perhaps most i

Maybe if they gave a shit about typography they would fix the bug in Word that prevents it from embedding more than one style of a given font: > Perhaps most infuriating, Word will embed any number of styles per family, but it will only display one. Meaning, if you’re using regular, italic, bold, and bold italic in your document, all four styles will be embedded. But when your recipient opens the file, only the regular will display correctly; the italic, bold, and bold italic will be Word-synthesized approximations, not the embedded fonts. > This last limitation means that Microsoft Word has reached the exalted state where it is not compatible with itself: it is writing data into its file format that it cannot read. Worst of all, this is not a bug—it’s the intended behavior [2]. [1] — https://practicaltypography.com/how-to-embed-fonts-in-a-word-document.html https://practicaltypography.com/how-to-embed-fonts-in-a-word... [2] — https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_standards/ms-oe376/22da0d03-7202-4731-9518-b96bfbe4de61 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_standards...

darreninthenet 3y ago
Is there a decent word processor that does handle this correctly?
- anon373839 3y ago
  Apple Pages. It also renders fonts much, much better - the difference in kerning quality is night and day. Unfortunately, Pages just doesn’t provide a lot of flexibility and power for formatting the document. It’s more like Google Docs - suitable for high school book reports.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    Better font rendering has been a hallmark of mac apps since OS X was released. Even the version of TextEdit (mac Notepad/WordPad analogue, for those unfamiliar) that shipped with OS X 10.0 likely beats out Word when it comes to things like kerning.
    - slater 3y ago
      I always marvel at what Windows users put up with re: fonts. And it doesn't seem to be getting better.
      - anon373839 3y ago
        What’s strange is that I use Microsoft Word on a Mac, and the font rendering is uniquely terrible in Word. At times it can seem that Microsoft goes out of its way to make its products do a bad job with core functionality.
      - kwanbix 3y ago
        Care to share an Image? I have no idea what you are talking about.
  - housemusicfan 3y ago
    So true. Pages is a modern-day version of "The Writing Center" from my Macintosh IIci.
  - Affric 3y ago
    I love Pages and I hate Pages. Pages is awful for things like bibliographies and referencing. It's LaTeX is janky, underpowered, and for some ungodly reason avoids computer modern like the plague. In 99% of things you will be just one option short of what you actually want to display. With that said it is easy to use. The documents almost always look like a document and not a bunch of text that has incidentally ended up on the same page. It doesn't take up too much vertical by using side panels well. It makes everything it does let you do easy. I have used heaps of WYSIWYG editors over the last 30 years. I have used some LaTeX ones too. Pages is the only one where I would keep the UI and just add more functionality (somehow without changing the UI).
- LordShredda 3y ago
  Unironically latex. It's a whole damn programming language but you can be sure it'll be readable 50 years from now
randomluck040 3y ago
Wait, what? What would be the advantage of this? There must be a reason why this is done like that?
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  A reason? Yes. A good one? No.
  - randomluck040 3y ago
    Can you elaborate or point me into a direction to read more?
moritzwarhier 3y ago
This is indeed surprising. CSS to the opposite handles this correctly and allows fine-grained control. The synthetic substitutions still exist, but only if you fail to provide the font variants. If I'm not mistaken, browsers still allow using embedded font variants if they are available in e.g. one OTF file
- addaon 3y ago
  CSS may handle this correctly in theory, but real implementations still have challenges with fonts that provide separate oblique and italic styles. [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60746818/how-can-i-use-both-the-oblique-and-italic-styles-of-victor-mono-in-vs-code/60746819#60746819 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60746818/how-can-i-use-b... [2] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58073983/how-to-show-different-italic-and-oblique-styles-when-the-font-provides-them https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58073983/how-to-show-dif...
  - moritzwarhier 3y ago
    OK, valid complaint, but honestly this is the first time I hear about the font style "oblique". Wikipedia says > Oblique type is a form of type that slants slightly to the right, used for the same purposes as italic type. Unlike italic type, however, it does not use different glyph shapes; it uses the same glyphs as roman type, except slanted So the use case for both italic and oblique font styles in the same document is very... opaque to me :) Sounds like a case of the perfect vs the good
    - addaon 3y ago
      The Victor Mono font is an example of a font that provides both. I use Italics for block comments, and Oblique for line comments. Do I need to? No. Does it look way better and make me happy? Yep.
Terretta 3y ago
The author of [1] has a set of excellently handcrafted fonts for legal documents in particular that are layout matches for commonly used fonts like Times or Arial but have distinctive looks instead. Also offers pro-tips for typography for lawyers and for general office typography. https://typographyforlawyers.com/what-is-good-typography.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/what-is-good-typography.htm...

darreninthenet 3y ago

Is there a decent word processor that does handle this correctly?

anon373839 3y ago
Apple Pages. It also renders fonts much, much better - the difference in kerning quality is night and day. Unfortunately, Pages just doesn’t provide a lot of flexibility and power for formatting the document. It’s more like Google Docs - suitable for high school book reports.
- jwells89 3y ago
  Better font rendering has been a hallmark of mac apps since OS X was released. Even the version of TextEdit (mac Notepad/WordPad analogue, for those unfamiliar) that shipped with OS X 10.0 likely beats out Word when it comes to things like kerning.
  - slater 3y ago
    I always marvel at what Windows users put up with re: fonts. And it doesn't seem to be getting better.
    - anon373839 3y ago
      What’s strange is that I use Microsoft Word on a Mac, and the font rendering is uniquely terrible in Word. At times it can seem that Microsoft goes out of its way to make its products do a bad job with core functionality.
    - kwanbix 3y ago
      Care to share an Image? I have no idea what you are talking about.
- housemusicfan 3y ago
  So true. Pages is a modern-day version of "The Writing Center" from my Macintosh IIci.
- Affric 3y ago
  I love Pages and I hate Pages. Pages is awful for things like bibliographies and referencing. It's LaTeX is janky, underpowered, and for some ungodly reason avoids computer modern like the plague. In 99% of things you will be just one option short of what you actually want to display. With that said it is easy to use. The documents almost always look like a document and not a bunch of text that has incidentally ended up on the same page. It doesn't take up too much vertical by using side panels well. It makes everything it does let you do easy. I have used heaps of WYSIWYG editors over the last 30 years. I have used some LaTeX ones too. Pages is the only one where I would keep the UI and just add more functionality (somehow without changing the UI).
LordShredda 3y ago
Unironically latex. It's a whole damn programming language but you can be sure it'll be readable 50 years from now

randomluck040 3y ago

Wait, what? What would be the advantage of this? There must be a reason why this is done like that?

jiggawatts 3y ago
A reason? Yes. A good one? No.
- randomluck040 3y ago
  Can you elaborate or point me into a direction to read more?

moritzwarhier 3y ago

This is indeed surprising. CSS to the opposite handles this correctly and allows fine-grained control. The synthetic substitutions still exist, but only if you fail to provide the font variants. If I'm not mistaken, browsers still allow using embedded font variants if they are available in e.g. one OTF file

addaon 3y ago
CSS may handle this correctly in theory, but real implementations still have challenges with fonts that provide separate oblique and italic styles. [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60746818/how-can-i-use-both-the-oblique-and-italic-styles-of-victor-mono-in-vs-code/60746819#60746819 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60746818/how-can-i-use-b... [2] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58073983/how-to-show-different-italic-and-oblique-styles-when-the-font-provides-them https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58073983/how-to-show-dif...
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  OK, valid complaint, but honestly this is the first time I hear about the font style "oblique". Wikipedia says > Oblique type is a form of type that slants slightly to the right, used for the same purposes as italic type. Unlike italic type, however, it does not use different glyph shapes; it uses the same glyphs as roman type, except slanted So the use case for both italic and oblique font styles in the same document is very... opaque to me :) Sounds like a case of the perfect vs the good
  - addaon 3y ago
    The Victor Mono font is an example of a font that provides both. I use Italics for block comments, and Oblique for line comments. Do I need to? No. Does it look way better and make me happy? Yep.

Terretta 3y ago

The author of [1] has a set of excellently handcrafted fonts for legal documents in particular that are layout matches for commonly used fonts like Times or Arial but have distinctive looks instead. Also offers pro-tips for typography for lawyers and for general office typography. https://typographyforlawyers.com/what-is-good-typography.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/what-is-good-typography.htm...