You can find out if your Windows fonts support Unicode by using the extensions that Microsoft supplies for the Properties tab that is available when a TrueType (.TTF) font file is right-clicked in Windows Explorer. With the latest core fonts for Windows, you can add a suitable keyboard layout (from the Language tab in the Keyboard section of Control Panel), and then select a layout from the icon tray in the taskbar and start typing in a different language – without needing to change fonts: You need Unicode fonts to display many of the characters for which there are HTML 4.0 character entity references, and to display the Unicode test pages. There is also a large shareware Unicode fonts, Code2000. Many of Microsoft’s operating systems and applications come with additional Unicode fonts, and Office 2000 onwards includes Arial Unicode MS, which includes all of the characters in version 2.0 of the Unicode standard. The core fonts ( Arial, Times New Roman and Courier New) for Windows platforms were converted to Unicode even before Microsoft changed to the 16-bit WGL4 character set (652 characters) in place of the 8-bit ANSI character set (256 characters), and the numbers of characters in these fonts has continued to increase. Bitstream also had an experimental Unicode font, CyberBit, freely available from Netscape for several years. One of the first was Lucida Sans Unicode from Bigelow & Holmes, supplied with a pre-release SDK for Microsoft Windows NT 3.1 in March 1993. The number of Windows TrueType and OpenType fonts that support Unicode is slowly increasing. Links to font-related and language-related Web sites.See the Fonts for the Web page to learn more about the typographic features used to evaluate a legible font. letterforms are very ornate, which can slow down reading speeds.Ī cursive-style font. Very narrow and heavy.Īvailable from Microsoft. Relatively small x-height, but succeeds with regard to legibility.Ĭonsidered legible by some, but also criticized as being "childlike." May be appropriate for sites with younger audiences.Ī narrow font that is probably too compressed for body text.Īvailable from Microsoft. Traditional font, but x-height relatively small and weight is light. Similar to Optima font with some serif features.Īvailable from Microsoft.
Released by Windows for Office 2007/Windows Vista. Good distinctions among most characters, and large x-height. Good x-height, but may not be on all computers. Traditional serif font designed for legibility. Weight is light.Īvailable from Microsoft. Good x-height, but some letters can be confused. "g" and &") considered too unusual for some readers, especially if literacy is an issue. Good x-height, but some letterforms (e.g. Good distinctions among most characters, but x-height is not especially large.Īvailable from Microsoft. Some typographers prefer Helvetica, but the two are generally similar. Some letterforms can be confused.Ī Windows analogue to Helvetica. Available on Mac, Unix and newer versions of Windows. Get Andika.Īdditional Fonts of Reasonable Legibility May also be suitable for readers with some reading disorders.
#Microsoft arial font free#
Weight can be light.Ī free sans-serif font from SIL designed for beginning readers with clear letter forms and foreign language support. Highly Recommended Fonts Fontsĭesigned for monitors by Microsoft. Note: For detailed notes on what enhances legibility, see the Fonts for the Web page.
#Microsoft arial font Pc#
Fonts are available on both PC and Mac unless otherwise specified. List of Recommended Fontsīelow is a list of recommended fonts with notes on the legibility of each. Note: If a document is meant primarily to be printed, other font options can be used. Decorative and narrow fonts in particular should be reserved for headlines and decorative texts only. Arial, Verdana) are generally considered more legible than serif fonts (Times New Roman), narrow fonts or decorative fonts. For online reading, sans-serif fonts (e.g.