Microsoft Excel

[kphoger]

I spend my working life in Microsoft Excel, and actually Calibri treats me well.  I prefer it to Arial, which is how certain things come over to me.  Honestly, the only time I change the font from Calibri to something else within Excel is when I need everything to be monospaced, in which case I use Consolas or everyone's old friend Courier New (but preferring Consolas).

However, in Word, I almost always switch to a more classy-looking serif font.  I've become fond of Cambria recently as a decent "normal" reading font.

But something about Aptos just looks.... I don't know.... weird.  I can quite put my finger on it.

[CtrlAltDel]

honestly speaking, in many cases any font (other than comic sans) would work just fine.

There's also Papyrus. 

But something about Aptos just looks.... I don't know.... weird.  I can quite put my finger on it.

Well, let's take a gander:


For me, what sticks out is the spacing between the characters as well as their width.

[kphoger]

There's also Papyrus

Papyrus is a font that I really wish could work well, but it just doesn't.  Whenever I use it, I have to take screenshots and adjust stuff in Paint.

[JayhawkCO]

I miss my days of using Courier New in high school when I needed to write an x page paper.

[MikeTheActuary]

Just poked around in Office, checking out the Aptos fonts.

I like that it's a well-rounded family, including "display", "monospace", and "serif" variants.

It's OK, I guess.  I don't hate it, but I also don't feel a burning need to change.  If there were some reason it were superior for some reason....

Any guesses as to how long it is until we see a contractor erect a highway sign using Aptos?

I liked Calibri when it was introduced, largely because I didn't hate it, it was different from Arial (which everyone was using at the time), and it was becoming "standard" enough that I didn't have to worry much about whether other people had the font installed on their machine.

A few years ago, I changed to Roboto as my sans-serif standard, because it seemed most readable to me, is either open source or at least has few copyright/trademark concerns, it has plenty of the glyphs I use, and it renders well on my printer (as opposed to my flirtation with Inter, which I really liked, but wouldn't print bold-faced)...and because it's not over-used on Windows machines.  (Android, is obviously another matter.)

(And, FWIW, when in "personal branding" mode, I'll use Stix Two when I need something with serifs, or Cormorant when I'm being fancy.)

Annoyingly, at work, corporate branding standards say that I have to use Arial on everything....but in spreadsheets, I see people whatever the Microsoft default was when the spreadsheet was first created.   That actually helps provide some clues as to how old some files are.

[epzik8]

I personally have become exhausted by Calibri, yet still appreciate Times New Roman.

[Rothman]

I personally have become exhausted by Calibri, yet still appreciate Times New Roman.

I can no longer stand the look of Times New Roman.

I don't mind Calibri.

[kphoger]

I can no longer stand the look of Times New Roman.

I don't mind Calibri.

Wait a minute!  Everybody, stop what you're doing!  Rothman and I agree about something!

[kalvado]

I can no longer stand the look of Times New Roman.

I don't mind Calibri.

Wait a minute!  Everybody, stop what you're doing!  Rothman and I agree about something!

Did you say something about times new roman, though?
I am not sure it counts without that part.

[formulanone]

Great, even more fonts to despise that that style of lower-case "l" (Trebuchet, Clearview, and now Aptos...probably others.)

[Scott5114]

They do it to make it easier to distinguish between I and l... I would prefer that it be done with a crossbar on the capital I, though, and leaving the l as a simple bar. (I have a modified version of Overpass running on one of my web apps that has crossbars on the I for this reason.)

[kphoger]

I prefer the curvy lowercase letter l.  Whenever I'm handwriting and want to make it especially clear that that's what it is, I do the same thing.  Serifs on the I and the 1, curvy bit on the l.  That's what I prefer.

[Rothman]

Great, even more fonts to despise that that style of lower-case "l" (Trebuchet, Clearview, and now Aptos...probably others.)

Yeah, blech.

[NWI_Irish96]

An optimist will tell you that the glass is ½ full.
A pessimist will tell you that the glass is ½ empty.
Microsoft Excel will tell you that the glass is January 2nd.

[formulanone]

I prefer the curvy lowercase letter l.  Whenever I'm handwriting and want to make it especially clear that that's what it is, I do the same thing.  Serifs on the I and the 1, curvy bit on the l.  That's what I prefer.

It wouldn't bug me so much except for it being the only abnormally curvy letter. Even the descender on "q" is oddly missing. The counters in the 6 and 9 are odd. Maybe it's juxtaposition of lower case and capitals, but the latter just seem overly wide.

I'll get used to it; I'm sure it looks fine on a screen where it will usually be viewed at 8-14 points and much of my little nitpicks disappear.

An optimist will tell you that the glass is ½ full.
A pessimist will tell you that the glass is ½ empty.
Microsoft Excel will tell you that the glass is January 2nd.

I wind up using the apostrophe before numbers very frequently.

[Dirt Roads]

An optimist will tell you that the glass is ½ full.
A pessimist will tell you that the glass is ½ empty.
Microsoft Excel will tell you that the glass is January 2nd.

Actually, Microsoft corrects the stuck bits and tries to tell you that the glass is January 2nd.  But every once in a while, it says the glass is September 10th.  If in doubt, reboot and you might get the correct answer (or January 2nd, whichever comes first).

[CtrlAltDel]

It wouldn't bug me so much except for it being the only abnormally curvy letter. Even the descender on "q" is oddly missing.

Speaking of q, isn't it weird that all four of these are letters?:

[Scott5114]

It's very convenient when designing a font, since I can normally just draw one of the four and mirror it three ways.

[kphoger]

Today, I finished up a project in Excel that had a LOT of data.  Like, the main worksheet had nearly 109,000 rows of data.  I wanted it to display everything in a monospaced font, so I considered changing it to Aptos Mono.  However, because the Department of Labor will be combing through the spreadsheet, I didn't want to take the chance that her computer isn't yet compatible with the new font family.  So I just used Consolas instead.

[fhmiii]

I use Excel nearly every day.  It's extremely useful for ad-hoc data manipulation that a database never had code written to do.  In a corporate environment, access to writing SQL scripts--even just queries--is often prohibited to users.  I was the assigned IT person for an entire division and I wasn't allowed to write custom queries.  So, most of my data manipulation was done in Excel because there was no option for me to do it otherwise.

I have experience using and even designing Access databases.  The main problems I have with Access are 1) initial setup that often involves writing extensive SQL and even VBA scripts plus designing a user interface for people to follow, and 2) the inherent slowness of the software when not paired with a SQL server.  I developed a database to help the sales team quote jobs (something our ERP should have been designed to do, but wasn't).  It worked just fine, but even simple queries with a very limited record set took a long time to run and display.  My sales team just stopped using it.  I asked to have it uploaded to the SQL server, and our MIS department rejected it without any consideration.  "Too likely to introduce instability."

In my present job, we have an ancient ERP system.  I spend a lot of time converting text files to excel so that I can run them through macros (at least that can be done with a script and some software like Monarch).  I paste the results into emails.

As for the font question, serif fonts are always better, and Georgia is the correct answer.

[formulanone]

As for the font question, serif fonts are always better, and Georgia is the correct answer.

I reach for that serif font the most, it's quite underrated (that is, I don't think I've ever heard any generalized hate for it).

[CtrlAltDel]

As for the font question, serif fonts are always better, and Georgia is the correct answer.

I reach for that serif font the most, it's quite underrated (that is, I don't think I've ever heard any generalized hate for it).

No generalized hate, no, although I don't especially like it. Except for the numbers, with their ascenders and descenders.



Using lining numerals would definitely give a different vibe to route shields:

[kphoger]

I've started using Aptos Mono for things in Excel.  Even 10 pt seems a bit large, but I'm going with it.

[kphoger]

Has anyone else's Microsoft programs switched back again from Aptos to Calibri?

[JayhawkCO]

Has anyone else's Microsoft programs switched back again from Aptos to Calibri?

Mine hasn't changed in the first place.