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Thomas Phinney
Inspiring
April 15, 2009
Question

Please make Verdana the default font, not Arial

  • April 15, 2009
  • 11 replies
  • 12160 views

Adobe Forums admin folks (John C, perhaps?), please have mercy on your users and make Verdana the default for posts, and not frickin' Arial. Verdana was designed for on-screen reading, while Arial was barely designed for reading at all. I'll set this same paragraph again in Verdana below, so you can see the difference. Assuming you can change the default font at all, of course.

Adobe Forums admin folks (John C, perhaps?), please have mercy on your users and make Verdana the default for posts, and not frickin' Arial. Verdana was designed for on-screen reading, while Arial was barely designed for reading at all. I'll set this same paragraph again in Verdana below, so you can see the difference. Assuming you can change the default font at all, of course.

That's the same point size in both paragraphs, btw. Isn't that better? Don't you wish this paragraph was in Verdana as well?

Cheers,

T

      This topic has been closed for replies.

      11 replies

      A
      Anonymous
      April 16, 2009

      As I said earlier, I support the choice of Verdana as a default font wholeheartedly (I am also a typography freak).


      But I sometimes wonder at the lengths people will go to, and the discussions that go on, about what in effect is the just the appearance of the forums.

      They are a tool for information exchange – not a way of life for godsake!

      Do you worry about what colour a spanner is before you will deign to use it?

      Claudio González
      Claudio González
      Brainiac
      April 16, 2009

      Sorry to use copy and paste, but Quote Previous Message isn't working for me:

      *******

      But I sometimes wonder at the lengths people will go to, and the discussions that go on, about what in effect is the just the appearance of the forums.

      They are a tool for information exchange – not a way of life for godsake!

      ***********

      What the OP, and at least I, have been defending is not so much the appearance, as the legibility of these forums. Arial is much more difficult to read on screen than Verdana; and Arial 10 pt is very hard on old and weak eyes such as mine. So it does impair their efficiency as a tool for information exchange.

      Also in my opinion, private solutions, as useful, intelligent, and successful as they may be, are not solutions; just workarounds. With this I am not ignoring their merits, but only saying that the real solution is that Adobe changes the default font of these forums.

      Zeno Bokor
      Zeno Bokor
      Inspiring
      April 17, 2009
      Sorry to use copy and paste, but Quote Previous Message isn't working for me

      i've found copy and paste text into the rich text editor, then hilight the text, then select the double greater than signs (">>") and select "Quote" works pretty well... better than quoting the whole message, imo.

      dave


      you can use the Quote Previous Message button for that but it only works like that when you have text selected in the editor

      Michael D Sullivan
      Michael D Sullivan
      Inspiring
      April 16, 2009

      Another vote for Verdana!

      Phos_four_dots
      Phos_four_dots
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      And while we're talking about the "Full Editor" what the heck causes it to behave so erratically?

      The cursor jumps to unexpected places all the time when you try to edit and otherwise manipulate text like anywhere else online or in any offline applications in common use.

      Having the dumbed-down formatting tools is all well and good, BUT PLEASE MAKE THEM BLOODY WORK LIKE THEY SHOULD, AND LIKE MOST PEOPLE EXPECT THEM TO WORK!

      Kath-H
      Kath-H
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      It's all a bit half-baked. Maybe a few more weeks in the oven will help.

      Claudio González
      Claudio González
      Brainiac
      April 15, 2009

      I am with Thomas. As he says, Verdana was designed specifically for improved on-screen reading, while Arial is only a fake Helvetica. And Helvetica was designed for improved reading on print, quite a long time before even TV was invented.

      Helvetica/Arial are difficult to read on screen, specially at small sizes such as the one used by default here. And they make no noticeable difference between I (uppercase i) and l (lowercase L) as Verdana does: Il.

      Phillip M Jones
      Phillip M Jones
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      Claudio González wrote:

      I am with Thomas. As he says, Verdana was designed specifically for improved on-screen reading, while Arial is only a fake Helvetica. And Helvetica was designed for improved reading on print, quite a long time before even TV was invented.

      Helvetica/Arial are difficult to read on screen, specially at small sizes such as the one used by default here. And they make no noticeable difference between I (uppercase i) and l (lowercase L) as Verdana does: Il.

      Its defficult to read on paper aa well, along with Arial.  "My" preference for reading on screen and reading is ITC Benguait.

      A
      Anonymous
      April 15, 2009

      PjonesCET wrote:

      Its defficult to read on paper aa well, along with Arial. 

      You do know that Arial is the M$ ripoff of Helvetica, right?

      Ramón G Castañeda
      Ramón G Castañeda
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      Thomas Phinney wrote:

      Adobe Forums admin folks (John C, perhaps?), please have mercy on your users and make Verdana the default for posts,

      I'm sure Eric or Mark could come up with a script to override Arial and replace it with Verdana during a short coffee break. 


      A
      Anonymous
      April 16, 2009

      Hahahah, fine I can take a hint!

      http://userstyles.org/styles/17023

      Ramón G Castañeda
      Ramón G Castañeda
      Inspiring
      April 16, 2009

      Eric @ MCA wrote:

      Hahahah, fine I can take a hint!

      http://userstyles.org/styles/17023

      Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

      You're just freakin' awesome, Eric!  You have improved the look of the entire forums dramatically. 

      I
      Ildhund
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      Arial is decidedly boring, but not unreadable. The problem with its use as the

      default at the website - as I see it in IE7 - is that the leading is too

      small. Thomas's examples both look fine in my RSS feed reader. Isn't there

      some way to specify line-height:1.2em; or something?

      Noel

      Jacob Bugge
      Jacob Bugge
      Adobe Expert
      April 15, 2009

      I vote for Verdana, or almost anything but fake Helvetica.

      And I vote for WordPerfect, still with 9 because of the shortcuts, still enjoying an application that can what Worst cannot, using Open Office when dealing with Worst and bundled applications.

      Per Berntsen
      Per Berntsen
      Adobe Expert
      April 15, 2009

      I quite like Calibri myself, so I set up a user style sheet for Opera. .jive-rendered-content has no specific styling, so the font is probably inherited from somewhere higher up. In any case, specifying fonts is very easy in css, it should take the Jive people 10 seconds to add a rule like the one below.

      I don't think Macs have Calibri, so my vote goes for Verdana too. Something like font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif

      .jive-rendered-content {font-family: calibri; font-size: 120%;}

      Phillip M Jones
      Phillip M Jones
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      I have it in my system fonts (Mac OSX.4.11) but it doesn't show up in the list of fonts here:

      Zeno Bokor
      Zeno Bokor
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      thats because Calibri isn't a widely used font, it comes only with vista and the latest ms office

      A
      Anonymous
      April 15, 2009

      I VOTE FOR WEB CROSSING.

      S_D_A_
      S_D_A_
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      dave milbut wrote:

      I VOTE FOR WEB CROSSING.

      Do u have an example of that font Dave ?

      Phillip M Jones
      Phillip M Jones
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      Webcrossing simply allowed the user to set the size of the font, and the font type was shown depending upon what is set for Mono-spaced or Proportional font.

      It appears fonts are set for you wehther you desire that style or not.

      A
      Anonymous
      April 15, 2009

      I'll vote for Verdana too!

      Just think, no more peering and squinting.

      Zeno Bokor
      Zeno Bokor
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      me want verdana too

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