What fonts do you people like to use for your reports and presentations? I'm always in a constant struggle to create the perfect report template and presentation formats.

A lot of people say the content within is the most important aspect of a report. While I agree, I think the way in which the content is presented is important as well, making sure that everything is easy to read both on screen and in print.

It kills me to see my company's "official" templates being laden with the ancient Arial and Times fonts. Fortunately we aren't always required to follow these guidelines.

For me, coming from graduate school and doing my thesis and dissertation in LaTeX, I've grown quite fond of the minimalist style of a standard LaTeX publication, along with the Computer Modern typeface created by Donald Knuth. Unfortunately I haven't found a decent recreation of the CM fonts in OTF or TTF format to allow me to use Word (I'd love to use LaTeX for everything, but that wouldn't go over well).

Lately I've been liking the new default fonts that are part of Office 2007. Cambria and Calibri both look great when printed and when viewed on screen. The default template for headings and body looks pretty decent, as well, once you strip away the colors they have included in the headers and title blocks. Much cleaner looking than the Arial/Times templates provided in previous versions of Office.

We have a secretary at work who uses Comic Sans in all of her emails. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard every time I get an email from her.

10/4/2009 3:19:18 PM

If you want to continue using Computer Modern, you can get the TTF version here or the OpenType version here

Personally I am a big of Calibri (not so much Cambria) and the Segoe family as 'staple' presentation fonts. Calibri is great for content, Segoe is great for headings.

If you want to spend a little money, my favorites are still Univers and Chalet (London 60/80 in particular), though both usually only for headings and callouts. Helvetica makes a good alternative for Univers, and there are a few free variants of some of the Chalet fonts out there.

And even though you ragged on it, Times New Roman isn't a bad typeface. It just isn't usually used appropriately. If you're going to use a classic serif, do it in a classic way (which few presentations are, but reports can be).

10/4/2009 5:23:16 PM

comic sans

10/4/2009 5:24:20 PM

I'm a big fan of Garamond and whatever the standard LaTeX font is (which looks an awful lot like Garamond) for written reports.

10/4/2009 5:48:38 PM

calibri and segoe ui (that's what it's called in gimp)

10/4/2009 5:57:08 PM

^I use the full Segoe family a lot. Unfortunately Segoe UI is all that comes with Windows, but if you google a bit, you can legally scrounge up the rest of the Segoe family for download.

10/4/2009 6:12:19 PM

what you mean you people?

10/4/2009 6:13:28 PM

^ exactly what you think i mean

Quote :

"I'm a big fan of Garamond and whatever the standard LaTeX font is"

The default TeX font is Computer Modern.



What's yall's take on using a serif vs sans serif font for body content?

10/4/2009 6:28:27 PM

^it depends on the context.

lots of text + printed = use a font with serifs
my favorite body text font is probably warnock pro or hoefler text.

for other stuff, my favorite fonts:
gotham (hell, most all of the hoefler fonts)
helvetica neue (duh)
myriad pro

univers can be useful in certain situations

i'm just babbling right now, though.

10/4/2009 7:08:41 PM

at least you don't insist on using Italicized Georgia font all the god damn time and insist it's the most professional looking font ever used, ever

10/4/2009 7:48:54 PM

georgia alone looks bad enough

10/4/2009 8:06:13 PM