have you thought about contacting the typeface designers?

and what version of word are you using? word 2007 makes text look a lot better.

This is a very important issue everytime clients will use fonts inhouse. Some professional type designers seem to neglect MS Office. I’ve had problems with this in the past.

I'm using Word 2007, but honestly I can't tell much of a difference between that and 2003. I've tried ClearType tuning, turning ClearType off, and pretty much everything else. And I've ended up concluding that some fonts display poorly on Word in Windows (for whatever reason). I get that there's no real financial incentive to catering to the very small group of folks in my situation, but it sure would be nice to be able to purchase some fonts that display as nicely in the application I use all the time as they do in print.

I don’t know about Mokka, but the Type Together guys are very accessible. Try asking them here. BTW, they have the following option: “Buy a single weight (or more) now and get reimbursed if you buy the whole font bundle later at any time”.

@mikebara

May it be, that the fonts, that are not looking good on your screen, are PostScript flavored fonts? It’s normal, that they don’t look as good as well hinted TrueType flavored fonts in small sizes on screen.

Simon Robertson pointed me over here. Thanks Simon.

The fact that you don’t like the PDF rendering, suggests that like many Windows users your preference has been tuned to crisp rendering of Windows and Office bundled fonts like Calibri and Cambria under Windows “GDI rendering”. These TrueType based OpenType fonts have had a level of hinting investment that few third-party font vendors can justify. Occasionally corporate clients, looking to roll out a corporate font across thousands of desktops, might be willing to invest in having a font hinted, but typically for font vendors selling to graphic designers (who are happy with the way Adobe apps render type) would have no need to. So really you have three options, live with the rendering, pick different fonts, or pay to have the fonts hinted.

No worries Sii.

(for those of you who don't know, Sii is the Microsoft type guy, so he's know all about this stuff)

:-D

Hey Mike, I could be wrong, but I believe that http://www.lucasfonts.com/ and http://www.daltonmaag.com/ have *office* versions of some of their fonts, I'm not sure if this means extra hinting, but they might be some good places to look too.

eg: http://www.lucasfonts.com/fonts/corpid/corpid-office/features/

edit: better link: http://www.lucasfonts.com/fonts/for-the-office/about/

Linotype and Monotype Imaging also offer specially hinted versions of some of their fonts, designated either XSF (eXcellent Screen Font) or ESQ (Enhanced Screen Quality).

How are you planning to use Skolar?

I've set it for long running text at sizes from 10-11 points and there's something that just doesn't feel right about it. Maybe I've become too accustomed to using warm, flowing faces like Dolly or Feijoa, but there's something rather jarring and distracting about Skolar when set at these sizes. I don't think it's appropriate for setting long running text, at least not at 10-11 points. The Skolar specimen pdf has it set smaller, I think, and it seems to work.

It shines as a web or display font, however. Go figure.

Looking at its vertical proportions, it looks like a solid 10pt font to me.
Could the jarring effect be due to your particular rendering device?

hhp

Hrant:

The serifs are a bit too distracting for my tastes, I suppose. Too much "slab" and not enough "round."

You get my angle?

Makes sense.
Smaller sizes certainly make slabs less slabby.

hhp