How do you decide which to use?

Supplemental question: Serif or sans serif: How do you decide which to use?

Helvetica is slightly nicer than Arial (IMO), but the untrained eye will probably not notice much of a difference.

You should always use a serif font for formal printed documents and sans serif is recommended for online documents and websites, but otherwise you can use whichever looks best in whatever you're making.

Really? I think the Helvetica upper case R is way too ungupatchke* compared to the Arial R.

Why is that? What difference does it make if the document is on a screen or on paper?



*I'm trying to secure kashrut acceptability for Jeanette by using Yiddish idioms.

I like it -- it's friendlier. The Arial R is too sharp. Arial can look too much like the font that you'd use to teach a kid to print, i.e., schoolbookish.


I don't know, that's what studies have shown are the most readable.

Though there is some argument that they're only perceived to be the most readable because that's what we grew up with and as more and more people grow up reading more on the Internet and less in books/magazines/newspapers, sans serif fonts will be more easily read even in printed documents.

While we're on the topic, why do printed works still make a's or g's not like we write them?

As for serif, from what I remember, it has to do with making the eye flow from one letter to the next - the serifs sort of connect the letters in a word together or something.

ETA: When handing in an essay or report at school, what's the best font to use? What about a business report for work?

Tradition.

Though there is sort of an explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G


And don't even mention the bane of my existence -- ligatures.


Twelve point Times New Roman. Always.

Interesting. I would assume most kids these days would do something sans serif because they are so used to it from the computer, so they'll just print off their essay in sans serif like Helvetica or something.

Never. Times New Roman is a) an OLDen day font, hard to read. I would pick Arial or Verdana.

Again with the Verdana. When did Verdana become so popular?

By the way, what's that default font on MS Word 2007? I forget what it is, but it was something weird.

Arial vs. Helvetica, the differences here: http://www.ms-studio.com/articlesarialsid.html

Serif typefaces are more classical and sans serif are more contemporary. A serif typface is also generally more organic and a san-serif is more mechanical. Therefore, depending on the application you would decide based primarily on that criteria.

It's because its installed on all computers as a standard.

So why is it standard on computers?

Good question, I dont know. Maybe Bill Gates and Steve Jobs got together and decided that they are going to have it pre-installed on all their systems.

That's only the first step in the application process.

I have to start somewhere.

Next step: I need to check the magazines in your bathroom.

If you turned in a paper using Arial or Verdana I'd assume you were engaging in font fraud. Most professors will even specify for people such as yourself to use 12 pt. TNR.

We don't have any in any of the bathrooms. We're good on that one. And for the record, there is no Uncle Moishy in the house [although I think there's an old audio cassette tape in my wife's vehicle].

Hmmm. I don't know if you could eat in my house then.

What if I just don't eat in the bathroom while reading a magazine?

But what if Uncle Moishy is playing in the background?

I don't know. When people got sick of Arial and still wanted a clean/clear font.



Not anymore (it used to be that way, but I don't believe it's still that way)


Why not?

I would just instruct the kids beforehand that there will be inappropriate media but that they shouldn't embarrass the hosts.

No magazines in the bathroom you mean? For esthetic reasons. Magazines are read in a chair or on a couch and bathrooms are for...doing other things.
As for Uncle Moishy, I guess you could also say for esthetic reasons. It's just not our taste. I'd imagine TRA will see that as evidence that we don't have Jewish values.


[off topic: why is it in a chair but on a couch?]

Yeah, it's still that way. I have a friend who's a professor and I once looked through the terms papers he received. I graded them based on fonts, margins, and other "technical" aspects. Basically, people who used any other font besides TNR got a lower grade. I compared my grades with the grades my friend gave and there was a high correlation between them. Make of this what you like, but to me it said that good students used TNR and not-such-good students spent their time fiddling with fonts.

Some examples:
http://libarts.wsu.edu/foleyinst/internships/cj490.html


http://gravlee.org/sexuality/syllabus/


http://www.continuinged.ku.edu/is/previews...9/syllabus.html

Plenty of people make a's that way. Including most of my family.

ETA: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=ou6stw&s=2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Eliyahu_Henkin

That class was the most wonderful class I ever took. It basically taught me what source-based halacha is and who the people behind the sources were and what a page of Gemara looks like. In addition to hilchos AZ and many, many asides.

What I like better, unless a teacher requests MLA format or something.

Like Xi said, many people do write them that way. And we write our g's the same as the one above, just with the line connecting the loops on the right.

You're definitely not Chassidish.

What would a chassidish person say?

times new roman, 12 pts., with 1-inch margins all around.

many do. and then they get an F for not following instructions :shrug:

"the car"

Apparently they're so likely to get an F anyway, it doesn't matter.

It's a van. But I didn't want to specify what type of vehicle so I said vehicle since it's more generic.
And here I thought you were going to say chasidish people don't say "my wife".

true.

Calibri.