Typophile

Is there a PC / cross-platform serif font for print that has non-lining numbers?

meanjean

I bet this question has been asked a million times: basically, is there anything out there other than Times New Roman and Arial for the most common cross-platform fonts (for print)?

I am designing templates for a non-profit governmental, political conference that needs a lowest-common-denominator font that can be found cross-platform. The templates will need to be accessible by all staff members who will all share in generating a body of documents within a one-week time frame from a home-office printer (like I said, non-profit...); they will hopefully come across with some semblance of a brand and consistent look. (The staff members are coming from all around the world, most will be using their own computers--who knows how old their PCs are). Every year, the conference has defaulted to Times New Roman and Verdana as the body and header fonts, respectively.

As I am not too familiar with the PC system, does anyone out there now if there is a common serif font with non-lining numbers (like Georgia, but for print?)

Speaking of Verdana, I am similarly looking for a new sans serif font for the header type that is common to all/most pc's and macs. Arial and Verdana, so far, seem to be the only ones that don't need to be substituted when the documents are transferred from PC-Mac-PC. I used Franklin Gothic last year for table tents and name badges, signage that was generated on location, etc...but this year, the documents were sent back to me using Verdana once again (I think this is because when the PC users open a document with Franklin Gothic specified from my mac, it asks for you to choose a new, substitute font--so they just chose Verdana). Should I re-convert everything to Franklin Gothic?

As I will be working remotely this year from a different time zone, it will be hard to be the control freak who makes sure all documents are looking consistent before they are printed out

The logo that will be on all documents is attached (it uses Interstate, and the 'th' is Caslon 540 italic).

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27th-logo-orig-OL-web.gif6.87 KB
meanjean

...or, should I just throw in the towel and just make everything goof-proof in Times New Roman?

I think I could force them to print in Franklin Gothic bold/book for signage by sending a bulk of documents in PDF form, but for last-minute things, there is huge potential for bad things to be pushed out of the printer (like long names being hyphenated and titles being cut off, etc.)

Si_Daniels

Georgia is cross-platform and works perfectly in print. Avoid overuse of the bold.

Si

Florian Hardwig

(like Georgia, but for print?)

If Times New Roman is okay for print, Georgia sure is too.

John Hudson

Constantia. Ships installed on Windows Vista and Windows 7, and with Office 2007 and some other MS products. Non-lining numerals are the default style; lining and other numeral styles are accessibly via OpenType Layout features, as are smallcaps, superiors, etc.

meanjean

Thanks for all your comments...client will probably like Georgia BECAUSE of the bold (for name badges and table tents): good for old eyes who aren't sitting in the front row ;) (But, as I will not be there to look over documents before they are sent to print, there is a very good chance that everything is going to get bolded, capped, italicized, underlined and enlarged, just to make sure you don't miss that point.)

What do you think of Cambria? Or is that not yet common enough on most windows systems? Was that only intro'd with Windows Vista?

Si_Daniels

Cambria doesn't have old style figures as the default. I wouldn't class it as cross-platform either, as Mac users have to pay for it (or buy Mac Office). Windows users would need Office 2010 to get at the old style figures.

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