A recent article in The Washington Post described how the U.S Secretary of State has ordered that all documents sent to the Secretary’s office must use the Calibri font and be in 14 point. It reminded me of the period in which staff in the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget were directed to use 14 point font for any budget documents being sent to the Governor to review. The reason we were given was that the Governor (I won’t say which one) did not like to admit that he needed to wear glasses in order to read anything in a smaller font.
Now, What is That Number?
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54 responses to “Now, What is That Number?”
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A better question is why are any paper documents being sent to anyone in goverment. They spend a ton of money of IT systems. Why can’t they use them. At least an electronic file does not end up in someone’s garage once they leave government.
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It is about electronic files. Supposedly, fonts with serifs are difficult for people with visual problems to read. Here is the justification: ”
Many experts agree that serif typefaces — categories of fonts with added
strokes — are more difficult to read on computer screens.” Those that use assistive technologies, such as screen readers, can do better with sans serif fonts.-
Supposedly, fonts with serifs are difficult for people with visual problems to read.
If that is the problem then they should just cut to the chase and go with Arial Bold.
🙂
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Supposedly, fonts with serifs are difficult for people with visual problems to read.
If that is the problem then they should just cut to the chase and go with Arial Bold.
🙂
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And yet, what is this font?
What we have here is a failure to sans serif….
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One can always zoom on an electronic document, even in PDF format. However, in a past life while working for the government, everything sent to the big dogs office had to be printed out. It seemed that senior management could not figure out how to handle electronic documents while doing staff work.
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I remember when Nextel phones came with a VHS tape showing you how to use your phone.
They weren’t that complex.
Probably the same type of senior management that needed a VHS tape to show them how to use their phone is the same time that can’t figure out how to handle electronic documents?
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It is not just the Big Dog, it is the entire staff. A paper copy lends itself to a process with a staffing form, gatekeepers, and a physician in-box. I have never been anywhere where a senior manager figured out how to use email/collaborative software to perform a process that many people could just go around.
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Supposedly, fonts with serifs are difficult for people with visual problems to read.
If that is the problem then they should just cut to the chase and go with Arial Bold.
🙂
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72-point Bodoni Bold. My 8th grade print shop teacher used to throw those at misbehaving students. A 1-cube of lead bounced off your head tended to grab attention.
Ah, the good old days of corporal punishment in schools. He lined the entire class on the field and applied the paddle once.
Nowadays, I wonder at his psycho-sexual proclivities…
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72-point Bodoni Bold. My 8th grade print shop teacher used to throw those at misbehaving students. A 1-cube of lead bounced off your head tended to grab attention.
Ah, the good old days of corporal punishment in schools. He lined the entire class on the field and applied the paddle once.
Nowadays, I wonder at his psycho-sexual proclivities…
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72-point Bodoni Bold. My 8th grade print shop teacher used to throw those at misbehaving students. A 1-inch cube of lead bounced off your head tended to grab attention.
Ah, the good old days of corporal punishment in schools. He lined the entire class on the field and applied the paddle once.
Nowadays, I wonder at his psycho-sexual proclivities…
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No, but hard-drives can and do.
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That is why many corporations have started encrypting their hard drives so that if they disappear, no one else can use the info.
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That’s good policy.
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The place I work for goes as far as to disable the USB ports for mass-storage devices. So no using a thumb drive or even a CD-burner.
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If that’s what it takes to get the boss to read your brilliant memo, go for it. I’ve had bosses who wanted certain formats or summaries.
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Can Biden still read?
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A more basic question; Could Biden ever read?
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He’s the sort of guy that needed the VHS tape the Nextel phone came with to tell him how to use it…
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Calibri is pretty common for government documents, but 14-points? That is a bit unusual. It’s about the size of the type used in large print books. It also adds about two pages for every 10 pages of type compared to 12-point.
So whatever happened to conserving paper and saving trees?
When he was appointed, I thought having Antony Blinken head up the Department of State was like the blind leading the blind, but I didn’t mean it literally…
😉
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That was the point. The governor needed large print in order to read without his glasses, but his vanity discouraged him from using the glasses.
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I just needed to set up my “blind leading the blind” joke.
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This is funny. Font, size, spacing, and justification were a major source of discussion in my office one week back when we ditched the word processor in the 80s in favor of everyone using Word.
We settled on Times New Roman, minimum 12 point, 1.5 spacing, no ragged edge as the default. I still have the “company approved” template someplace.
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I prefer a “ragged edge” to the artificial
e x p a n s i o n of text r e q u i r e d t o
provide “smooth” e d g e s on the right
side of the page. -
I prefer a “ragged edge” to the artificial
e x p a n s i o n of t he text r e q u i r e d
to provide “smooth” edges o n the right
side of the page.-
Split 50-50 at the time on ragged edge. I won when I grabbed half dozen books and pubs, all double justified, laid them open, and said, “yeah, ‘cause books and pubs want to be less readable.”
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I understand the appeal, and most of the time it works fine, especially with modern word processing software that uses fractions of spacings between letters and words when providing double justification.
Back in the days of WordPerfect and early versions of MS Word, though, double justification often led to some weird and unexpected results.
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Can you imagine the fun of typesetting by hand?
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Yeah, I’m sure it was a laugh-a-minute.
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This is one aspect of a concept known as style guide. While it’s true that it’s easy to zoom electronically , the font still can be an issue for readability for some folks. I look at how some other countries do written language and .. it’s “greek” to me for sure! 😉
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Is it because you’re trying to read the Athens Agitator?
If one wants to complain about formatting, why is the federal register still published in three column with four point fonts?
Why are the Code of Federal Regulations published in two-column.
Why are alerts from the National Weather Service published in all caps Courier font?
Why are professional journals published in two columns but the graphics printed across both columns.
Why are so many documents published by the federal government not start page 1 on the first page. It is irritating when one has to use a PDF where the page with 1 at the top or bottom is actually page 6 to 10 because the first few pages used roman numerals.
The world has been using electronic document for a couple of decades but too many legacy systems have kept the conventions from print.
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…why if the federal register still published in three column with four point fonts?
So carrying a hard copy won’t require a Terex Titan tandem-axle dump truck?
😉
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On rice paper.
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How many people read the FR electronically versus who still demands a paper copy. Formating should be for the majority and the future, not a few holdouts for a legacy 1950 format.
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Then it should be audio.
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Perhaps, but “Big Hi-Liter” will never allow any of these things to happen…
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I can read much faster than listen or watching. I detest the CNN/Fox News idea of posting stories only in video format. It takes too long to watch.
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deep state!
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good points! excellent points!
I wear glasses 100% of the time and have for most of my life – no vanity here. As of late things have gotten so bad with the near/far sighted mix that I need a special pair of glasses focused to about 24 inches to clearly see my PC screen. I sure would rather read 14 font rather than 12 if given the choice.
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I go through a daily routine of “eye exercises”. Rolling, wide opening, crossing, hard closing, etc. It really helps. I can see the dashboard of the car without glasses perched on the end of my nose.
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And here I was told by mom that if I kept crossing my eyes they were going to get stuck that way… cue The Jerk memes…
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“I need a special pair of glasses focused to about 24 inches to clearly see my PC screen.”
I’ve been wearing tri focals for a long time. That mid section focus at screen distance is useful.
OTOH modern screen sizes make font size selections and glasses configurations moot. When I figured out I could get cheap large screen TVs and use them as monitors I was in heaven. Even with my eyes I can read them without glasses.
That has led us to more silliness. Even on a bigger screen our eyes can’t resolve the difference between 1080 and 4k further away than about 2 feet.
Interesting that a short piece on font draws snark about POTUS not the SOS. Off topic???
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Apparently not….. but totally not surprised …
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Apparently not….. but totally not surprised …
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Hey, now. Be fair.
My original snark was aimed directly at the SOS.
I only snarked the president after someone else opened the door…
😉
They should all use comic sans since the government is quite literally a joke lead by a senile old clown
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Perhaps we should all learn to read “Wingdings”…
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Youngkin’s not that old. This is about State pubs. Who else could you mean?
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All politicians up to the fed
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