| description | serif | sans-serif |
|---|---|---|
| some circumflexes (2 "a", 2 "e", 2 "i" with circumflexes) | ââ, êê, îî | ââ, êê, îî |
| some "umlauts" (2 "a", 2 "e", 2 "i", 2 "u" with umlauts; the "i" spaced for legibility) | ää, ï ï, öö, üü | ää, ï ï, öö, üü |
| some ligatures (2 "ae", 2 "AE", 2 "oe" ligatures) | ææ, ÆÆ, œœ | ææ, ÆÆ, œœ |
| "a" and "A" with macrons ("a" and "A" with a macron, each following the circumflex form and preceding the grave form) | âāà, ÂĀÀ | âāà, ÂĀÀ |
| "e" and "E" with macrons (same arrangement as above) | êēè, ÊĒÈ | êēè, ÊĒÈ |
| "i" and "I" with macrons (same arrangement as above but spaced for legibility) | î ī ì, Î Ī Ì | î ī ì, Î Ī Ì |
| "o" and "O" with macrons (same arrangement as for a-macron, etc.) | ôōò, ÔŌÒ | ôōò, ÔŌÒ |
| "u" and "U" with macrons (same arrangement as above) | ûūù, ÛŪÙ | ûūù, ÛŪÙ |
| "u" with breve (and again, but only lowercase) | ûŭù | ûŭù |
| double quotation marks (surrounding a word, within parentheses, no space) | (“double”) | (“double”) |
| single quotation marks (ditto) | (‘single’) | (‘single’) |
| degree, minute, second (2 of each, spaced for legibility) | ° ° ′ ′ ″ ″ | ° ° ′ ′ ″ ″ |
| half, quarter (half twice, quarter twice) | ½½¼¼ | ½½¼¼ |
| more fractions (1/3, 2/3, 2/5) | ⅓, ⅔, ⅖ | ⅓, ⅔, ⅖ |
| long dash ("Oh no---" once) | Oh no― | Oh no― |
| em dash ("Eh--what?" twice) | Eh—what? Eh—what? | Eh—what? Eh—what? |
| en dash ("Paris-London" twice) | Paris–London Paris–London | Paris–London Paris–London |
| pound space euro (NB there's a space between each pound-euro pair) | £ €, £ € | £ €, £ € |
| pound thin-space euro (same, but the space has become a thin space) | £ €, £ € | £ €, £ € |
| pound (no-space) euro (same, but the space has been deleted) | £€, £€ | £€, £€ |
| cent and yen (Here and below, just one of each) | ¢¥ | ¢¥ |
| non-breaking hyphen ("X-ray") | X‑ray | X‑ray |
| right double quotation mark, low (,,Was ist los?'') | „Was ist los?” | „Was ist los?” |
| dagger and double dagger (spaced for legibility) | † ‡ | † ‡ |
It's a table displaying (or attempting to display) characters that I hope to use in one area of a new site. Other than that, I hope it's mostly self-explanatory. The only prescription for fonts is:
td.ser {font-size:180%; font-family:serif}
td.san {font-size:180%; font-family:sans-serif}
I'm interested to know how it displays in your browser/OS/typeface setup. Feel free to play with it on your own hard drive. Let me know what you see, and of course don't forget to tell me which typefaces you're viewing it in.
This page will be deleted in a matter of days; please don't link to it.
I downloaded a number of fonts linked from Alan Wood's page, and tried them out with MSIE 5.0 and 5.5, and Mozilla 0.9.8 and 1.0, all under 'Doze 2000. Below are some comments.
For each of the following, you should (if you're using a browser with CSS) see two pangrams, one in regular print and one in "italic" (whether real or faked), either (a) in the proportional font that's named (if you have this) or (b) in your default monospaced font. If it's monospaced, ignore it; if it's proportional, then it may be an example of the face that's discussed . . . though it's perfectly possible that you're looking at a different font that happens to have the same name.
"Microsoft" below means "as now or recently distributed by Microsoft"; "freeware" below does not imply "public domain".
For certain characters (quotation marks, non-breaking hyphen, "2/5") that are present in a given font, MSIE (5.0 or 5.5) has a bizarre habit of substituting the characters of another face. (Mozilla does not do this; I do not know about MSIE 6+.) Perhaps it assumes that they're not in any western font.
The Monotype Corporation, ver. 2.76, [not Arial Unicode MS] Microsoft sans-serif. In MSIE, characters for "2/5" and thin space are missing. (Some characters are in Arial Baltic, not in standard Arial; I've no idea how the browser/OS decides which to use.)
Very legible, but there's no italic.
Arial (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Freeware, serif. (This is the one Bitstream Cyber* face that is not enormous.) Everything is there except "2/5", thin space, and non-breaking hyphen. Line up the lowercase letters with different diacritics, and you can see that they are uneven. In practice, though, this might not matter.
I'm not testing the monster Bitstream CyberCJK and Cyberbit, on the assumption (perhaps too hasty) that they won't show any differences.
Bitstream Cyberbase (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
The Monotype Corporation, ver. 2.35. Microsoft serif. Like Arial.
No non-break hyphen. Very legible, but the italic seems much lighter than the roman.
Book Antiqua (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Serif, this month's freebie from freefont.de, although usually a (very modestly priced) commercial face. No non-break hyphen, no long dash. Also, confuses MSIE, which substitutes the sans-serif font in some places. (This does not happen in Mozilla, where all looks well.)
Poor on screen.
Caslon (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Freeware serif. No character for "2/5" and the long dash is a hyphen. Also, confuses MSIE, which substitutes the sans-serif font in some places. (This does not happen in Mozilla.)
Caslon Roman (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Shareware, ver. 1.13, serif. Everything is there except "2/5". Ugly, though.
Code2000 (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
J. Victor Gaultney, ver. 1.0, 2002. Freeware, serif. Lacks "1/3", "2/3", and "2/5". Line up the lowercase letters with different diacritics, and you can see that they are slightly uneven. In practice, though, this probably wouldn't matter.
Poor on screen.
Gentium (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
J. Victor Gaultney, ver. 1.0, 2002. Freeware, serif. As for Gentium.
Poor on screen.
GentiumAlt (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Microsoft Corp., ver. 2.05. Microsoft serif. Like Arial.
Excellent on screen.
Georgia (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Bigelow and Holmes, ver. 2.00. Microsoft sans-serif. No thin space; the character for "2/5" is missing.
Excellent on screen, but there's no italic. (This is a great pity, as pre-Unicode Lucida Sans had an excellent italic face.)
Lucida Sans Unicode (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Microsoft Corp., ver. 1.10. Yes, well, Microsoft sans-serif (surprise surprise). None of the fractions or dashes, etc.
Pretty good on screen, but there's no italic and the narrower characters are too scrunched up for my taste.
Microsoft Sans Serif (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, ver. 1.40. Microsoft serif.
I happen not to like the quotation marks, which all run 7 o'clock 1 o'clock, but other than that this is excellent.
Palatino Linotype (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Microsoft Corp., ver. 2.80. Microsoft sans-serif. The long dash appears to be shorter than the em dash, the low right double quotation mark is unlike the other quotation marks, and the character for "2/5" is missing.
Similar to MS Sans Serif, but preferable. Lacks italics.
Tahoma (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Freeware sans-serif. MSIE is unhappy with it, using another font instead for many of the characters.
Thyromanes (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Monotype Corp., ver. 2.76. Microsoft serif. Like Arial.
Not bad at all, but not too good either.
Times New Roman (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Freeware serif. The character for "2/5" is missing, and the long dash is shorter than the em dash. Otherwise everything is OK in Mozilla. In MSIE, there are oddities: characters of different sizes are displayed.
Titus Cyberbit Basic (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Microsoft Corp., ver. 1.22. Microsoft sans-serif. Like Bookman Antiqua.
Trebuchet MS (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
Excellent, legible, with genuine italics.
Christoph Singer, ver. 1.00. Freeware serif, from Slovo. None of the fractions, no Euro, or thin space, or non-breaking hyphen.
Not bad, but lacks italics.
XSerif Unicode (unless monospaced): Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward. Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
I'll avoid use of the long dash, non-breaking hyphen, and "2/5" character. None is widely supported or really necessary for my purposes.
Of the typefaces that I've tried -- which aren't many -- my favorite sans-serif and serif fonts for reading on screen are Trebuchet MS and Georgia respectively. (The latter is boring, but it's legible even in large doses.) So I'll use CSS to specify lists of typefaces (in order of decreasing desirability), and these two will be high on the lists.
Until I get around to building my Linux box, I know little about OSes other than Windows. I get the impression, though, that Smart package of Microsoft's core fonts makes these fonts available to most people running a GUI, and therefore that I'm not being Windoze-centric if I specify them.
Dag has made an interactive version of this page. (His page may last long, this one will not.)