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RE: What's wrong with Times New Roman?; was, RE: Hey! She messed with *my* manual
Subject:RE: What's wrong with Times New Roman?; was, RE: Hey! She messed with *my* manual From:"Ed." <hamonwry12 -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:<quills -at- airmail -dot- net>, "'TECHWR-L'" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:40:05 -0400
I think it's just an aesthetic choice. I personally use Minion Pro and
Myriad Pro for my docs. TNR seems way overused.
However, I would recommend against using Optima in body copy. It's a
delicate face that can easily lose a lot of detail, especially when printing
from a laser printer.
-=Ed.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+hamonwry12=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+hamonwry12=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of quills -at- airmail -dot- net
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 3:33 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: What's wrong with Times New Roman?; was, RE: Hey! She messed
with *my* manual
Well, yes there are other fonts that work as well or better than Times
New Roman.
Be aware that Times and Times New Roman were created for the narrow
columns of a newspaper (hence the name Times, as in New York Times,
etc.). The Times and Times New Roman face is very narrow to accomodate
narrow columns. If you don't like that, try a font with a different
ratio of height to width. Minion is one such, Caslon and Century are
other, and Garamond is yet a fourth.
If you don't like a pure serif, and want something in between try a
semi-serif like Optima. It has the graduated stems that approximate a
serif font, yet still has the clean lines of a sans-serif.
Scott
Leonard C. Porrello wrote:
> Not a fan at all. Just wondering what's wrong with it and what I could
> use instead. My understanding is that serifed fonts are more readable in
> print and sans-serif fonts are more readable on-line. So, if there is a
> better alterative to TNR for printed text, I'd love to know.
>
> Leonard
>
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ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 2009 is your all-in-one authoring and publishing
solution. Author in Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor, Microsoft Word or
HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. http://www.doctohelp.com
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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