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What are your favorite fonts for technical reports? (mander.xyz)

submitted 11 months ago by DarthGraben@mander.xyz to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I work at a consulting engineering firm and write a lot of reports that are read by the public. I have an opportunity to recommend a different font for all of our written documents and am looking for something more modern/fresh than Times New Roman. Also open to recommendations for purpose specific communities about typography/fonts.

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[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 21 points 11 months ago (13 children)

For regular text, something sans-serif that is not fixed width like Calibri.

For code or numbers, a fixed width sans-serif font like Consolas or Inconsolata.

Serif fonts definitely have their place, far away from technical documents.

[–] DarthGraben@mander.xyz 9 points 11 months ago (12 children)

It feels like low effort to use the default Office font when there are so many other options, but in my sans serif font tests Calibri ended up looking the best so far. I really didn't want to like it! Curious where you think serif fonts belong? I don't know shit about fonts/graphic design...

[–] Ashtear@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I write mostly for web, so I don't use serif a lot. I think it's still fine for use with headings.

If your reports are destined for print, it still belongs, imo.

[–] DarthGraben@mander.xyz 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What counts as print these days though? When I first started working, we'd get literal boxes shipped to us with 1,000+ page documents inside. Now it's a cloud link that opens with a PDF reader. Does that still count as print? Genuinely curious, because I see conflicting advice depending on if its print or not.

[–] Ashtear@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

Anything literally printed on paper. If you're in PDFs and you know your audience is going to be reading it on a small screen, I'd say stay away from the serif fonts. Especially since you mentioned elsewhere that you're concerned about document length; you can get away with smaller letter tracking size on sans.

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