The decision to abandon Calibri on the grounds of it being a so-called “wasteful diversity font” is both amusing and regrettable. Calibri was specifically designed to enhance readability on modern computer screens and was selected by Microsoft in 2007 to replace Times New Roman as the default font in the Office suite. There were sound reasons for moving away from Times: Calibri performs exceptionally well at small sizes and on standard office monitors, whereas serif fonts like Times New Roman tend to appear more distorted. While serif fonts are well-suited to high-resolution displays, such as those found on modern smartphones, on typical office screens the serifs introduce unnecessary visual noise and can be particularly problematic for users with impaired vision, such as older adults.

Professional typography can be achieved with both serif and sans-serif fonts. However, Times New Roman—a typeface older than the current president—presents unique challenges. Originally crafted in Great Britain for newspaper printing, Times was optimised for paper, with each letterform meticulously cut and tested for specific sizes. In the digital era, larger size drawings were repurposed as models, resulting in a typeface that appears too thin and sharp when printed at high quality.

Serif fonts are often perceived as more traditional, but they are also more demanding to use effectively. While a skilled typographer can, in theory, produce excellent results with Times, using it in its default digital form is not considered professional practice.

Calibri, by contrast, incorporates extensive spacing adjustments and language-specific refinements. The digital version of Times New Roman, developed in the early days of computing, offers only minimal kerning and letter-pair adjustments. This is especially evident in words set in all capitals—such as “CHICAGO”—where the spacing is inconsistent: the letters “HIC” are tightly packed, while “CAG” are spaced too far apart. Microsoft cannot rectify these issues without altering the appearance of existing documents.

What a waste of government time and spending.

Another issue is due to the font size and font metrics, how much space it will take up on the page, to be small enough to avoid wasting paper and ink but also not too small to read.

So, there are multiple issues in choosing the fonts; however, Times New Roman and Calibri are not the only two possible choices.

Maybe the government should make up their own (hopefully public domain) font, which would be suitable for their purposes (and avoiding needing proprietary fonts), and use that instead.

IMO the government should pick something available under an appropriate free license or commission a new font for the purpose.

(I personally much prefer Times New Roman to Calibri for printed documents, but that’s neither here nor there.)

There's an irony: the _Times_ (of London) commissioned it in 1932 to improve the readability of its newspaper, which previously used a Didone/Modern style typeface.

I like Times New Roman and I find Calibri, a rounded-corner sans serif, to be an absolute abomination of milquetoast typography.

I got politely informed to not use NYTimes font in a paper I turned-in when I was in college. On that occasion, it was an accident. I'd taken the file to school to print, and my owiginal font selection had been replaced by the default. My professor merely said that it is hard to read by people with older eyes.

Several years later, I understand. My default font is now set for Liberation Sans. I have trouble reading 'decorative' fonts. For printouts, I use Liberation Mono.

And changing it back to Times New Roman isn't wasteful?

A simple correction would stop this spiral, but Reuters appears committed to forging a bold new era in which terminology is chosen at random, like drawing Scrabble tiles from a bag and declaring them journalism.

I have only bad memories of using it since I directly associate it with endless formatting fixes for my diploma and course works.

Firstly, I thought sans-serif typefaces were encouraged for digital media because they read better than serif fonts. But now that high pixel density displays have permeated the market, this might be a moot point.

On another note, I wonder how much of the hate TNR gets stems from its ubiquity for having been installed on almost all personal computers for the past n decades.

Paganis are beautifully designed cars, but the labelling of buttons and toggles inside the center console look cheap (IMO) because their font seems straight out of a quickly made flyer designed by bored teacher who just discovered Word Art.

"It’s like they spent $300 million on the movie, and then.. They just used Papyrus."

In 1941 Adolf Hitler personally gave order to make the use of the Antiqua mandatory and forbade the use of Fraktur and Schwabacher typefaces.

https://ligaturix.de/bormann.htm

In an “Action Request” memo obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said that switching back to the use of Times New Roman would “restore decorum and professionalism to the department’s written work.” Calibri is “informal” when compared to serif typefaces like Times New Roman, the order said, and “clashes” with the department’s official letterhead.

As far back as I can recall, this is a politician who has railed against 'political correctness'.

[1] https://www.amazon.es/-/en/gp/product/8417427627?ref_=dbs_m_...

(https://practicaltypography.com/times-new-roman-alternatives...)

> When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or advertisement, it connotes apathy. It says, “I submitted to the font of least resistance.” Times New Roman is not a font choice so much as the absence of a font choice, like the blackness of deep space is not a color. To look at Times New Roman is to gaze into the void.

> If you have a choice about using Times New Roman, please stop. Use something else.

And on Calibri:

(https://practicaltypography.com/calibri-alternatives.html)

> Like Cambria, Calibri works well on screen. But in print, its rounded corners make body text look soft. If you need a clean sans serif font, you have better options.

- - -

To telegraph an identity, TNR is a good choice for this administration; so, credit where due, well played. Still, I would have gone with Comic Sans.

Strange times to live in.

I’ll personally be taking my votes to supporters of Helvetica next election.

But then it's bigger, for example to replace Time New Roman 10 it would require Noto Serif 8.5.

Bro what. It was the default font in Microsoft for many years thus, it was the default font for most office software for many years -- just like Times New Roman was before.

What.

Also in Word etc, if I've got to spend a lot of time in a large document, I'll usually edit the paragraph body style temporarily to something sans serif. It's just better on screen.

Marco Rubio Orders State Dept to Stop Using Calibri Font in Anti-DEI Push

https://gizmodo.com/marco-rubio-orders-state-dept-to-stop-us...

Who defines decorum and professionalism? Because I’d say this change is anything but.

Then again, this is very partisan and so subjective. Still, I’m not a fan of a government pushing certain esthetics with such a BS justification.

It is not so bad if you are using it for paragraphs but I can't stand the way serifed fonts come out if I am setting display text for a poster unless I manually take over and adjust the kerning. After I had this problem I was wondering if I was the only one or what other people did so I looked at posters people had put up around campus and had a really hard time finding posters where people were using serifed fonts in large sizes and my guess is people either start out with sans or they tried something with serifs but changed their mind because it looked wrong.

When senior government officials are spending time & public mindshare/attention on whether a particular font is or is not diverse then you know it is game over.

The details don't matter...this being a topic at all is the news

  > calling his predecessor Antony Blinken's decision to adopt Calibri a "wasteful" diversity move,
  
  > The department under Blinken in early January 2023 had switched to Calibri, a modern sans-serif font,
  > saying this was a more accessible font for people with disabilities

HN should rejoice in the US gov using a font that is open and truly cross platform.

I do wish they’d gone for a classier serif though; Garamond was right there.

So to reiterate, the department decided to move on from the 1992 default Word font to the 2007 Word default (1 year after it was no longer the default).

Nothing is safe from politics when even a font choice has become "woke".

https://archive.ph/2025.12.10-001235/https://www.nytimes.com...

ahem... We're not the 1st of April...

It genuinely feels like someone worked out that you don't actually need to build a better stealth bomber than the B2. You just need to infiltrate government enough to have them debate what fonts are woke

Then I think "nah surely not. can't be that easy". And then next week...another insane thing comes out of US republican camp. I'm starting to think one does indeed not need B2s to defeat an enemy

Switching from Calibri back to Times New Roman "because DEI" 100% tracks with this administration's spiteful Project 2025 vandalism.

How pitiful do you have to be as Secretary of State to get into minutiae about fonts, anyway?

You also get Calibri if you search for it, but not Zapf Dingbats.

Terry Gilliam at his most deranged couldn't dream up this nonsense.

This is our opportunity to tell our friends that neither Times New Roman nor Calibri are very good fonts.

If they’re using Word—and they definitely are—Aptos is a better choice than either.

If they want to look fancy and have a serif in their life, maybe they could try a little Cambria.

But if they have a twinkle in their eye and seem like they want to learn, take a moment to introduce them to the wide and glorious world of Roboto. Tell them about the wonders of medium and light and semi-bold and extra-bold and wide and display and condensed and custom ligatures. Give them a taste of what real office typography could’ve been if Microsoft didn’t absolutely destroy it in the 90’s.

Open their mind. Show them the truth. This is your time.

> window.getComputedStyle(document.querySelector('.entry-content > p')).fontFamily

> '"Instrument Sans", sans-serif'

I guess The White House hasn't received the memo yet about how important serifs is for "presenting a unified, professional voice in all communications". What a joke.

Otherwise, seems kinda benign and random.

If you add up all the government memos, forms, letters, contracts, publications, everything printed globally…

“wow. many serif. so pointy. much ink. such waste!” — Kabosu, probably

Times New Roman might not be the world's most beautiful font, but at least is a little bit less atrocious than Calibri (which is awful). So, whatever the rationale invoked, I welcome the change.

Sometimes, when I have to work on documents which will be shared with many users, I use Times New Roman as serif, and Arial as a sans serif. Both choices are (admittedly in my very subjective opinion) better than Calibri, and it's almost guaranteed that every PC will have these fonts available, or at least exact metric equivalents of them.

That's interesting because I've long been under the impression that serif fonts promoted easier reading. As such, serif fonts could / should be considered more accessible.

I love if someone remembers that event better and can provide a link. My memory serves it was about a decade or so ago.

This administration truly sets a high standard for professional communication...

> S.V. Dáte, HuffPost’s senior White House correspondent, asked the White House earlier this month who suggested Budapest, Hungary, as the location for an upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded: “Your mom did.” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung then followed up: “Your mom.”

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

Who care about fonts? Boring. Why not jazz it up by mentioning coups during an administration that previously tried to pull of a coup attempt. Any administration officials names and coup should not be in the same sentence unless they attempt another one(or unless it's talking about the previous one).

Calibri became the State font in Jan 2023.

<https://web.archive.org/web/20151207071605/http://historywei...>

The OP successfully included excerpts from the order without changing to times new roman so CLEARLY this is not insurmountable for anybody who actually notices irrelevant details such as this.

Roboto has a dual nature. It has a mechanical skeleton and the forms are largely geometric. At the same time, the font features friendly and open curves. While some grotesks distort their letterforms to force a rigid rhythm, Roboto doesn’t compromise, allowing letters to be settled into their natural width. This makes for a more natural reading rhythm more commonly found in humanist and serif types.

A Sancerre with a long, sweet finish.

Secretary Antony Blinken on NPR's Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me! About the U.S. Department of State moving from Times New Roman to Calibri.

And it works!

Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

207 points|danso|3 years ago|256 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34427504

Might want to start by banning tweeting then.

/s

If they want to look like a proper government then the correct answer is monospace and in ALL CAPS just like FAA NOTAMS, obviously.

Now memory safety sounds too woke, and Trump administration will be moving back to pure C.

Is Trump incapable of hiring anyone borderline competent?

We live in the world were everything is now "vibed" really.