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Microsoft

Meet Microsoft Office's New Default Font: Aptos (theverge.com) 58

Posted by msmash from the new-bells-and-whistles dept.
Microsoft is replacing its Calibri default font with Aptos, a new sans-serif typeface that's inspired by mid-20th-century Swiss typography. From a report: Previously known as Bierstadt, Microsoft has been on the hunt for its new Aptos default font over the past couple of years. The software giant commissioned five new custom fonts for Office in 2021, and the Aptos font was picked as the default after years of feedback.

"Today we begin the final phase of this major change where Aptos will start appearing as the new default font across Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel for hundreds of millions of users," explains Si Daniels, a principal program manager at Microsoft, in a design blog post today. "And, over the next few months it will roll out to be the default for all our customers." Aptos was created by Steve Matteson, a leading type designer. Matteson previously created Segoe, which was licensed by Microsoft to be used as the Windows default font. Microsoft first started using the Segoe UI font subfamily in Windows Vista, and it's still used in Windows 11 today. Matteson also worked on the development of the original Windows TrueType core fonts.
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Meet Microsoft Office's New Default Font: Aptos More

Meet Microsoft Office's New Default Font: Aptos

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  • Just What We Need? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NoWayNoShapeNoForm ( 7060585 ) on Thursday July 13, 2023 @03:06PM (#63683489)

    Meet the new font. Same as the old font.

    /sarcasm

    • Indeed.

      Would actually be better news if the existing fonts were GPL'd since so many of the eyeballs are Android users these days, releasing another font that will be used widely is more like inconveniencing the bulk of users.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      In the end we all get fonted.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It does seem to render a bit better on high DPI displays. It's not a massive difference, but it's noticeable.

      • When I can not Be Ill with I and l.

        Letters need to have different shapes.

        Microsoft Verdana is actually very good, I use it for programming.

    • You know a company's really, really, really run out of ideas when they start pushing UI refreshes for fonts.

  • Why though (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ZERO1ZERO ( 948669 ) on Thursday July 13, 2023 @03:07PM (#63683493)
    No mention in the article as to why they are changing it or what the reasons for picking this particular font were. So its basically a variant of helvetica / Arial Big whoop Im happy for you Any word on if libra office are making a similar change

    • Re:Why though (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 13, 2023 @04:48PM (#63683709)
      Time for a new font because it's time for new protections. Fonts and typefaces aren't elligible for copyright protection in the United States but you can take out Design Patents on them for a period of up to 15 years. Calibri was released to the general public in 2007 so its DP would have expired in 2022.

      • Time for a new font because it's time for new protections. Fonts and typefaces aren't elligible for copyright protection in the United States but you can take out Design Patents on them for a period of up to 15 years. Calibri was released to the general public in 2007 so its DP would have expired in 2022.

        Except this is an Office font we're talking about. Microsoft allows free use of their fonts for any and all publication including advertisement. The only restriction is that you do not embed font files themselves: i.e. you want to make a lovely feature film with "creative" (LOL!) use of Aptos font as a subtitle, you need to embed the font as a graphic (and also not use the home version of Office).

        All this is doing it making Office appear / look unique compared to the competition. MS want people to see you u

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It really is for rendering. If you have a 4k monitor then compare the samples to Calibri. For both horizontal and vertical text.

          It looks better to me. Especially with vertical text. Fonts use sub-pixel rendering on Windows, but of course that only works horizontally. So fonts have 3x the horizontal resolution, and Calibri was designed to take advantage of that.

          Now that we have both 4k displays and people like to use their monitors in portrait mode, some improvements were due to make the default sans serif f

    • The start of the blog post linked from the article (https://medium.com/microsoft-design/a-change-of-typeface-microsofts-new-default-font-has-arrived-f200eb16718d) gives some of the rationale.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )
        Read through that link and, geez, these guys are worse than architects in expounding on the virtues of their designs:

        How do you replace Calibri? How do you find that one true font that can take its place as the rightful default? . . .

        We can’t wait for Aptos to be readily available since it was crafted to embody the many aspects of the human experience. . .

        He designed the font with a slight humanist touch. He wanted Aptos to have the universal appeal of the late NPR newscaster Carl Kasell and the astute tone of The Late Show host Stephen Colbert. . .

        Steve said the font has an understated personality that couldn’t be “overtly” neutral. . .

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      No mention in the article as to why they are changing it or what the reasons for picking this particular font were. So its basically a variant of helvetica / Arial Big whoop Im happy for you Any word on if libra office are making a similar change

      Got to change the default font every so often to trip up document forgers [theverge.com].

      Apparently document forensics and font forensics is a real thing, and it resulted in Wikipedia having to lock down the entry on Calibri because of it.

    • It has better "Air Quotes"

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ald_a ( 265781 )

      Product managers keeping themselves busy that's why.

  • Something inherently unpredictable about system wide font upgrades..

  • Today we begin the final phase of this major change where Aptos will start appearing as the new default font across Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel ...

    DefaultFont=Aptos

    :-)

  • Seriously, how is this presented as major news? 99 percent of users won't notice. Yet I wonder how much time sent on implementing said feature across multiple teams?

    • News for typography nerds, stuff that matters?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 )

      Most users won't notice, the rest will change it back instantly.

      • Almost. Most user won't notice, the rest won't care. Seriously who the fuck cares about what the default font is. Font people generally fall into four categories:
        1) Creative types who never used defaults in the first place.
        2) People with preference for serif or sans-serif, and the former aren't using the defaults anyway.
        3) People who are forced to use a custom corporate font in a company.
        4) Everyone who hates comic sans.

        Many people will notice the font change and do nothing at all about it because really no

        • You seem to underestimate how much people hate change of something they grew accustomed to.

          • You seem to underestimate how much people hate change of something they grew accustomed to.

            No I don't. People's aversion to change is almost universally based on usability. If you're a coder, and the font change causes you to have more difficulty separating 0 and O, you probably hate change. But unless the font actively changes readability (which it doesn't, it's a very boring normal default looking font) people are not going to give a shit.

  • It works fine with the Compatibility Pack to allow you to use .DOCX, .XLSX, and .PPTX files.

  • I mean I like the little seaside towns in California, the font itself is pretty bland. To be fair it's no worse than Calibre and Arial. Aptos has that same quirky look that Calibre has where capital letters look a slightly heavier weight.

  • Everyone should write their documents at work with a font called "beer city".

  • Noticed the font changed on my keyboard. Looks to be this. Wondering what that was about.

    Too bad you can't download it to get a jump on things.

  • I always thought Word picked fonts at random when ever I've been forced to use that rancid pile of rat droppings.

  • Office is ancient history (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Wolfling1 ( 1808594 ) on Thursday July 13, 2023 @04:19PM (#63683641) Journal
    Its taken years, but we've finally completely phased Office out of our systems. As I write this, I'm in the process of rebuilding the last eight servers that have any Office components on them.

    It is a massive breath of fresh air.

    Thank you to the LibreOffice community.

    • LibreOffice is nice if you want free, and if you just want a desktop editor. If you want to share a document and have multiple users editing it at the same time, as is now common in many businesses, you still need Office or Google Docs. Just editing word processor documents is no longer enough for most of us.

  • Another proprietary era in fonts or...? (Score:3)

    by lpq ( 583377 ) on Thursday July 13, 2023 @04:48PM (#63683703) Homepage Journal

    It took a while before new MS fonts were available throughout the web -- is the purpose to make MS-docs a separate look from the rest of the web, or is this new font going to be released for other [non-MS] docs and usage to allow the new look across the web on open web pages and docs as well??

    • the purpose (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Is that MSFT has no expert UI planning whatsoever. Some dipshit project manager got his font project approved when MSFT was flush with cash and here's the fruits of the project. It's definitely not because Satya Nadella thinks that people are going to buy MS Office more because of the fonts it uses.

      FWIW Office has basically vanished in the home market now. Google Docs is fine (or one of the other free alternatives). Office still makes a lot because of 365 but eventually that will fail too.

  • Glad I can keep using it, it's been my default font in outlook the past two years.

  • I'd like to see side-by-side comparisons of key differences between it and past default fonts.

  • I wonder what the default font for Word 2000 was. Haven't used it in at least 2 years.

  • All this Fontasy bullshit is lame. Take this font and shove it.

  • looking forward to my improved customer experience and enhanced safety features

    how does this get pushed thru the committees? don't they have to make some sort of business rationalization, like making money?

    how does Teams remain a steaming pile but a new default font gets the nod?

  • Are certain pixels in the font going to start dying, causing a cascade where the glyphs kind of go Pop and the letters all fall running down the screen, Matrix style.

    Or are they deifying the font?

    Or is it kind of both? The letters and numbers on your screen die, signifying their transition to godhood...in the cloud, I guess?

  • Why a new font? (Score:3)

    by Bu11etmagnet ( 1071376 ) on Friday July 14, 2023 @12:56AM (#63684569)

    What's wrong with Comic Sans?

  • I really wished at least one source could have a side by side comparison.
    Not even "aptos calibri comparison" as a ddg-search query gave me that.

  • change for change's sake. but a great new press release.

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