Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
463 lines (324 loc) · 28.2 KB

on-fonts.md

File metadata and controls

463 lines (324 loc) · 28.2 KB
Raw

On Fonts and Typography for Writers

TL;DR

Typefaces for (US-centric) …
  1. Drafts: use whatever font you like.
  2. Developmental manuscripts, screenplays, and stageplays:
    • narrative prose and poetry: some readable Times serif New Roman-like typeface.
    • non-narrative prose: some readable sans-serif Arial-like typeface
    • screenplays and stageplays: a typeface that matches Courier's metrics precisely. This is a strict rule.
  3. Submitted manuscripts: Times New Roman, Arial/Helvetica/Calibri/Aptos, or whatever the agent or publisher demands in their submission guidelines.
  4. Submitted screenplays: Courier Prime or Courier (not Courier New). That's what you use.
  5. Typeset books: This is a wide open topic, but safe bets are: EB Garamond or Crimson Pro or Crimson Text for the interior book text. For chapter titles, margin text, and other smaller text that needs to stand our from the bulk text, maybe Source Sans Pro or Overpass. For the book title (inside the book, not the cover), I like Overpass, but this requires some design consideration.
What about …
  • Alternatives to those proprietary fonts: See below. And only choose those typefaces for drafts, developmental manuscripts, or submissions that allow them.
  • Installing those proprietary fonts on linux: Google it. It's simple, and Microsoft allows it, apparently. (They didn't for the longest time.) Note that Aptos often has to be installed separately.
  • Recommendations for wordy websites? See below.

Settling on a set of fonts for a project is hard

There are a zillion different fonts to choose from. Each has their own personality, vibe, feel. Fonts are nuanced. Something that wows on screen can disappoint on the page. A font that looks amazing on the printed page can make a web page look stilted. Fonts that look great in small doses, look mediocre once viewed as a page full of text. And some fonts make great headers but are terrible in the text body.

We have all wasted countless hours trying one font, then another, and then another. The more look-and-feel is important to a project, the more difficult the choice. The more permanent selection—for example, with printed material—the choice becomes truly challenging.

The purpose of this document is to discuss the typeface (font) needs for the writer. Font selection in the general sense will be touched upon, but that is a large topic and will not be fully explored here. Therefore, we will not be, for example, focusing on the needs of the advertiser, designer, or graphic artist. It could be argued that the real discussion should surround typography more than merely fonts but . . . well, I talk mostly about fonts. Read more about typography here: https://practicaltypography.com/typography-in-ten-minutes.html.

Developmental writing

When it comes to developmental writing in the earliest stages, the choice of font becomes relatively easy: use whatever you like. For example, I'm writing this document using a text editor. The typeface is Courier Prime, a monospaced font. Last week I was using Victor Mono, another monospaced font with some fancy flourishes when words are italicized.

Submission

Once past the developmental stages, if going the traditional publishing route (literary journals, magazines, book publishers), we writers cobble everything together and prep for submission. In this case, the work needs to be initially put into a generalized manuscript form. For that, the very best guidelines, IMHO, can be found on writer William Shunn's website here: www.shunn.net/format/. I have reviewed a zillion sites and his is, hands-down, the best.

So, get your document into manuscript form. The font? The font selection becomes even easier: Times New Roman. Now, this initial document (before you look at submission guidelines) can be any font you like, but my recommendation is to cave to convention and format it in Times New Roman. It's proprietary, but it is what the industry expects. And if you are submitting to a third party, you need to give them what they demand.

A write-to-completion tip: Everything I write I write to completion, whether I submit it or not, I eventually format it in such a way. It is good practice to file all of your work for posterity in a completed state. I also print it out and file the hardcopy away as well. Electrons are ephemeral; paper is forever.

Note, Shunn's site focuses on narrative prose and poetry. For non-narrative non-fiction, the guidelines can be different. Some Arial-like sans-serif typeface is generally accepted, though, again, Times New Roman is always a safe bet if they give you no guidelines. I don't have a lot of experience with non-narrative prose in the submissions process.

The screenplay standards are strict. You screenplay is required to use a typeface that is metrically identical to Courier. Not Courier New, but Courier. But Courier is dated. Instead use Courier Prime, and if your prefer (and they allow), Courier Prime Sans. Courier Prime at 12pt is the safe bet and the industry has embraced it. (If you use the programs Fade In or Final Draft to write your screenplay, their own versions of Courier also meet the spec.) And that is all I am going to say about screenplays now. I don't know enough about stageplays, but, from my understanding, they follow the same "rules."

Okay. You have a manuscript. It's submission time!

For this process, it's now time to review an agent's or a publisher's submission guidelines for how they expect the manuscript to be formatted. Usually they simply ask for it to be in a conventional manuscript format, 12pt Times New Roman, double-spaced, and sent to them as a .docx file (formatted for Microsoft Word). Publishers are becoming more flexible though and they may simply as that it be in some standard manuscript format, any professional serif or sans-serif typeface, and sent as a .docx or .odt file. But you can't go wrong with, especially until you are established as a writer, .docx and Times New Roman for your final output.

Self-Publishing

If you self-publishing (printed, ebook, epub, or blog), your choice of font (or set of fonts) widens and needs to match the overall design of the book, publication, or website. Book content design is an entire subject unto itself that I will not go into here. Maybe I will at some later date, but great typeface choices for body-text are in the families of: Garamond, Goudy, Crimson Text, Sabon, Utopia, Merriweather, Minion Pro, Palantino. See below for excellent, unencumbered, options.

But! But! Linux doesn't supply Times New Roman!

The short answer/solution: if you are on a platform that does not have Times New Roman installed, just do an internet search for how to install it and do it today.

For example, as of Fedora Linux 39, you need to do this:

sudo dnf install curl cabextract xorg-x11-font-utils fontconfig -y
sudo rpm -i https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/mscorefonts2/rpms/msttcore-fonts-installer-2.6-1.noarch.rpm

Linux users don't typically have the name-brand fonts installed (Times New Roman, Courier, Arial/Helvetica/Calibri/Aptos). In fact, for a very long time, the selection of fonts available to the open source world were very limited, and none that looked particularly great on both the screen and the page. The Linux desktop used to be full of usable, but unattractively grainy, fonts that served as poor substitutes for fonts provided by the proprietary world of Apple and Microsoft.

Boy things have changed!

Open source dominates all platforms now: mobile, web, servers, and even the the proprietary desktops of the world (Apple and Microsoft). The desire for open everything, the availability of font design tools, and strategic corporate sponsorship has led to a blossoming of open source fonts. And on top of the list are fonts that can serve as drop-in replacements (metrically compatible) for, you guessed it, Times New Roman, Courier, Arial, Helvetica, Calibri, and Aptos. Feel free to use these mimics in place of the proprietary typefaces until you are forced to do otherwise but a particular publisher or agent.

And so, today, the available variety of fonts is vast and of high quality. Especially in support of latin-based languages. (If you have to support a breadth of character types, check out the Noto family of typefaces.)

For linux, many fonts are available as packaged items . . .

  • In the Gnome desktop, open the Software application (gnome-software)
  • Scroll towards the bottom and in "Other categories" there should be a button labeled "Fonts". Click that.
  • At the time of this writing (December 29, 2023 and Fedora Linux 39), I count nearly 300 fonts available.

But even more can be found at or Open Font Library, Google Fonts, dafont, and FontSquirrel.

And with that said, Times New Roman—and Courier and Arial and the rest—have open alternatives that, I would argue, are just as mature and effective today as the ones they emulate. Some reasonable alternatives are listed in the next section below.

The Fonts I Use

Spoiler alert!

This is a long article just to say that nine times out of ten, given no other guidance, you want to choose Times New Roman for narrative and poetry works when submitting your work. And for the draft and revision process, use whatever you want.

There are alternative typefaces out there that nicely mimic the proprietary fonts. I often use these for my manuscripts that store away until forced to comply to some standard from a publisher. Here are those fonts … LibreOffice, Google Docs, or even MS Word

  • Manuscript-standard (Times New Roman) mimics (12pt. always)
    • Text body: Croscore Tinos, TeX Gyre Termes, or Liberation Serif
    • Heading and Frontmatter (story facts): Surprise! Use the same font for everything.
  • San-Serif mimics
    • Arial: Croscore Arimo, Liberation Sans
    • Helvetica: TeX Gyre Heros
    • Calibri: Crosextra Carlito
    • Aptos: ?????
  • Screenplay- and Stageplay-standard mimics
    • Courier (monospace): Courier Prime, TeX Gyre Cursor, Nimbus Mono PS, or Noto Mono. For a Courier-like, but more "sans-serif" experience, check out Courier Prime Sans, Courier Prime Code, or Croscore Cousine.

For Self-publishing, some of my choices are . . .

  • Text body: EB Garamond, Cormorant Garamand Medium, Cardo (11pt), Libre Caslon Text (10pt), or Crimson Text or Crimson Pro
  • Headings: Fira Sans Book, TeX Gyre Pagella (Palantino-like), Overpass, Crosextra Carlito, Montserrat, or Avería Sans/Serif Libre (the Avería fonts are almost too unique).

For the web
I didn't really talk much about website typefaces, but I maintain three websites using these fonts (they change a bit frequently):

  1. Text: Cardo and Fira Mono / Headings: Fira Sans Book
  2. Text: Crimson Text and Fira Mono / Headings: Fira Sans Book
  3. Text: Libre Caslon Text and Fira Mono / Headings: Avería Sans Libre
    Used for select blog posts (non-inclusive): Chilanka, Fira Sans Book, Crimson Text, Croscore Cursor, Overpass, Overpass Mono

Installation of some of these on Fedora Linux 39

# TeX Gyre Termes, TeX Gyre Cursor, TeX Gyre Heros, and more
# Croscore Tinos, Croscore Cousine, Croscore Arimo, Crosextra fonts, and more
# Liberation Serif, Liberation Sans, Nimbus Mono PS, Noto Mono, and more
sudo dnf install texlive-tex-gyre* google-croscore-* google-crosextra-* google-noto-* liberation-* urw-*-nimbus-*

 
Fonts can lead you down a path of darkness and sorrow. Be careful out there. Just make sure you are happy with the fonts you have chosen. Good luck!

—Todd Warner [email protected]

Addendum

Where to find certain fonts and how to install them

The core metrically compatible fonts

Desktop installation (as described previously):

# TeX Gyre Termes, TeX Gyre Cursor, TeX Gyre Heros, and more
# Croscore Tinos, Croscore Cousine, Croscore Arimo, Crosextra fonts, and more
# Liberation Serif, Liberation Sans, Nimbus Mono PS, Noto Mono, and more
sudo dnf install texlive-tex-gyre* google-croscore-* google-crosextra-* google-noto-* liberation-* urw-*-nimbus-*

Website availability:

All but the TeX fonts are easy to use for any website. Just use Google Fonts or Open Font Library. Please note that the CSS for the liberation fonts as configured by Open Font Library made them relatively inflexible. I redid the CSS and include it here for your convenience.

<!-- HTML -->
<!-- liberation sans and serif -->
<link rel="stylesheet" media="screen" href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/taw00/writing-resources/master/Artifacts/css/toddwarner-font-sans-liberation.css" type="text/css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" media="screen" href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/taw00/writing-resources/master/Artifacts/css/toddwarner-font-serif-liberation.css" type="text/css"/>
<!-- Tinos (a Croscore font) -->
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Tinos:ital,wght@0,400;0,700;1,400;1,700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

Or . . .

/* CSS */
/* liberation sans and serif */
@import url("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/taw00/writing-resources/master/Artifacts/css/toddwarner-font-sans-liberation.css");
@import url("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/taw00/writing-resources/master/Artifacts/css/toddwarner-font-serif-liberation.css");
/* Tinos (a Croscore font) */
@import url("https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Tinos:ital,wght@0,400;0,700;1,400;1,700&display=swap");

Example configuration (web):

/* CSS */
p, .libserif {
  font-family: 'Liberation Serif', serif;
}

.tinosserif {
  font-family: 'Tinos', serif;
}

I leave it to the reader to figure out the rest. Most of the other fonts can be installed similarly. I will mention a couple others where there may be more too it than that.

Cardo

You can get old versions of Cardo from Google and FontSquirrel but there is a newer version at the designer's website. It hasn't been updated since 2011 so . . . the designer may have abandoned it or die or something. Regardless, I like the font.

For Desktop:

For the web:
Just use the dated Google fonts. They are not noticeably different to me.

<!-- HTML -->
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Cardo:ital,wght@0,400;0,700;1,400&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

Or . . .

/* CSS */
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Cardo:ital,wght@0,400;0,700;1,400&display=swap');

Example configuration (web):

/* CSS */
p { font-family: Cardo, serif; }

Avería

Avería is a wickedly cool set of fonts. The designer essentially developed the fonts by averaging many popular fonts and . . . boom! Avería was born. It makes for a smooshy, but attractive print that looks good for many things, but will not be right for all projects. I particularly like the font for headings, though for text it looks interesting as well.

For Desktop:

For the web:

<!-- HTML -->
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Averia+Serif+Libre:ital,wght@0,300;0,400;0,700;1,300;1,400;1,700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Averia+Sans+Libre:ital,wght@0,300;0,400;0,700;1,300;1,400;1,700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

Or . . .

/* CSS */
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Averia+Serif+Libre:ital,wght@0,300;0,400;0,700;1,300;1,400;1,700&display=swap');
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Averia+Sans+Libre:ital,wght@0,300;0,400;0,700;1,300;1,400;1,700&display=swap');

Example configuration (web):

/* CSS */
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { font-family: 'Averia Sans Libre', sans-serif; }
p { font-family: 'Averia Serif Libre', serif; }

The fonts can also be found here: serif and sans serif

Resources