Microsoft fonts

This article explains how to install TrueType Microsoft fonts and emulate Windows’ font rendering.

Contents

Installation

Using fonts from a Windows partition

If there is a Windows partition mounted, its fonts can be used by linking to them. It may be necessary to apply a workaround for system compressed files in order to read the font files.

For example, if the Windows C:\ partition is mounted at /windows :

Then regenerate the fontconfig cache:

Alternatively, copy the Windows fonts to /usr/share/fonts/ :

Then regenerate the fontconfig cache:

Extracting fonts from a Windows ISO

The fonts can also be found in a Windows ISO file. The format of the image file containing the fonts in the ISO is either WIM (Windows Imaging Format) if the ISO is downloaded online or ESD (Windows Electronic Software Download) if it is built with Windows’ Media Creation Tool. Extract the sources/install.esd or the sources/install.wim file from the .iso and look for a Windows/Fonts directory within this file. It can be extracted using 7z (in p7zip) or wimextract (in wimlib ). See an example below using 7z:

The fonts and the license will be located in the fonts directory.

Current packages

• ttf-office-2007-fontsAUR — Office 2007 fonts
• ttf-win7-fontsAUR — Windows 7 fonts
• ttf-ms-win8AUR — Windows 8.1 fonts
• ttf-ms-win10AUR — Windows 10 fonts

Legacy packages

You can also obtain ttf-tahoma AUR which, as you might expect, contains Tahoma.

Fontconfig rules useful for MS Fonts

Often websites specify the fonts using generic names (helvetica, courier, times or times new roman) and a rule in fontconfig maps these names to free fonts (Liberation, Google CrOS, GUST TeX Gyre. ). The substitutions are defined in /etc/fonts/conf.d/30-metric-aliases.conf .

To make full use of the Ms Windows fonts it is necessary to create a rule mapping those generic names to the Ms Windows specific fonts contained in the various packages above:

It is also useful to associate serif,sans-serif,monospace fonts in your favourite browser to MS fonts.

Windows 8

Although it provides newer versions of the fonts, it cannot automatically download the fonts due to license issues.

You can acquire fonts from an installed and fully updated Windows 8.1 system. Any edition of Windows 8.1 build Windows 8.1 6.3.9600.17238 will work.

On the installed Windows 8.1 system fonts are usually located in %WINDIR%\Fonts and license file is %SYSTEM32%\license.rtf .

You need the files listed in the source=() array. Place them in the same directory as this PKGBUILD file, then run makepkg.

makepkg —pkg ttf-ms-win8 will make just the Windows 8.1 core fonts package which should cover even more than ttf-ms-fonts AUR .

Fonts

This design guide was created for Windows 7 and has not been updated for newer versions of Windows. Much of the guidance still applies in principle, but the presentation and examples do not reflect our current design guidance.

Users interact with text more than with any other element in Microsoft Windows. Segoe UI (pronounced «SEE-go») is the Windows system font. The standard font size has been increased to 9 point.

The Segoe UI font.

Segoe UI and Segoe are not the same font. Segoe UI is the Windows font intended for user interface text strings. Segoe is a branding font used by Microsoft and partners to produce material for print and advertising.

Segoe UI is an approachable, open, and friendly typeface, and as a result has better readability than Tahoma, Microsoft Sans Serif, and Arial. It has the characteristics of a humanist sans serif: the varying widths of its capitals (narrow E and S, for instance, compared with Helvetica, where the widths are more alike, fairly wide); the stress and letterforms of its lowercase; and its true italic (rather than an «oblique» or slanted roman, like many industrial-looking sans serifs). The typeface is meant to give the same visual effect on screen and in print. It was designed to be a humanist sans serif with no strong character or distracting quirkiness.

Segoe UI is optimized for ClearType, which is on by default in Windows. With ClearType enabled, Segoe UI is an elegant, readable font. Without ClearType enabled, Segoe UI is only marginally acceptable. This factor determines when you should use Segoe UI.

Segoe UI includes Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and Arabic characters. There are new fonts, also optimized for ClearType, created for other character sets and uses. These include Meiryo for Japanese, Malgun Gothic for Korean, Microsoft JhengHei for Chinese (Traditional), Microsoft YaHei for Chinese (Simplified), Gisha for Hebrew, and Leelawadee for Thai, and the ClearType Collection fonts designed for document use.

Meiryo includes Latin characters based on Verdana. Malgun Gothic, Microsoft JhengHei, and Microsoft YaHei use a customized Segoe UI. Use of italic versions of these fonts is not recommended. Malgun Gothic, Microsoft JhengHei, and Microsoft YaHei are supplied in regular and bold styles only, meaning italic characters are synthesized by slanting the upright styles. Although Meiryo includes true italic and bold italics, these styles only apply to the Latin characters the Japanese characters remain upright when italic styling is applied.

A variation of Meiryo, called Meiryo UI, is preferred in the ribbons command user interface.

To support locales using these character sets, Segoe UI is replaced with the correct fonts depending on each locale during the localization process.

To license Segoe UI and other Microsoft fonts for distribution with a Windows-based program, contact Monotype.

Note: Guidelines related to style and tone and user interface text are presented in separate articles.

Design concepts

Fonts, typefaces, point sizes, and attributes

In traditional typography, a font describes a combination of a typeface, a point size, and attributes. A typeface is the look of the font. Segoe UI, Tahoma, Verdana, and Arial are all typefaces. Point size refers to the size of the font, measured from the top of the ascenders to the bottom of the descenders, minus the internal spacing (called leading). A point is roughly 1/72 inch. Finally, a font can have attributes of bold or italic.

Informally, people often use font in place of typeface as done in this article but technically, Segoe UI is a typeface, not a font. Each combination of attributes is a unique font (for example, 9 point Segoe UI regular, 10 point Segoe UI bold, and so on).

Serif and sans serif

Typefaces are either serif or sans serif. Serif refers to small turns that often finish the strokes of letters in a font. A sans serif typeface doesn’t have serifs.

Readers generally prefer serif fonts used as body text within a document. The serifs provide a feeling of formality and elegance to a document. For UI text, the need for a clean appearance and the lower resolution of computer monitors makes sans serif typefaces the better choice.

Contrast

Text is easiest to read when there is a large difference between the luminance of the text and the background. Black text on a white background gives the highest contrast dark text on a very light background can provide high contrast as well. This combination is best for primary UI surfaces.

Light text on a dark background offers good contrast, but not as good as dark text on a light background. This combination works well for secondary UI surfaces, such as Explorer task panes, that you want to de-emphasize relative to the primary UI surfaces.

If you want to make sure users read your text, use dark text on a light background.

Affordances

Text can use the following affordances to indicate how it is used:

• Pointer. The I-bar («text select») pointer indicates that the text is selectable, whereas the left-pointing arrow («normal select») pointer indicates that text isn’t.
• Caret. When text has input focus, the caret is the flashing vertical bar that indicates the insertion/selection point in selectable or editable text.
• Box. A box around text that indicates that it’s editable. To reduce the weight of the presentation, the box may be displayed dynamically only when the editable text is selected.
• Foreground color. Light gray indicates that text is disabled. Non-gray colors, especially blue and purple, indicate that text is a link.
• Background color. A light gray background weakly suggests that text is read-only, but in practice read-only text can have any color background.

These affordances are combined for the following meanings:

• Editable. Text displayed in a box, with a text select pointer, a caret (on input focus), and usually on a white background.
• Read-only, selectable. Text with a select pointer and a caret (on input focus).
• Read-only, non-selectable. Text with an arrow pointer.
• Disabled. Light gray text with an arrow pointer, sometimes on a gray background.

Read-only text traditionally has a gray background, but a gray background isn’t necessary. In fact, a gray background can be undesirable, especially for large blocks of text, because it suggests that the text is disabled and discourages reading.

Accessibility and the system font, sizes, and colors

The guidelines for making text accessible to users with disabilities or impairments can be boiled down to one simple rule: Respect the user’s settings by always using the system font, sizes, and colors.

If you do only one thing.

Respect the user’s settings by always using the system font, sizes, and colors.

Developers: From code, you can determine the system font properties (including its size) using the GetThemeFont API function. You can determine the system colors using the GetThemeSysColor API function.

Because you can’t make any assumptions about users’ system theme settings, you should:

• Always base your font colors and backgrounds off system theme colors. Never make your own colors based on fixed RGB (red, green, blue) values.
• Always match system text colors with their corresponding background colors. For example, if you choose COLOR_STATICTEXT for the text color, you must also choose COLOR_STATIC for the background color.
• Always create new fonts based on proportional-sized variations of the system font. Given the system font metrics, you can create bold, italic, larger, and smaller variations.

A simple way to ensure that your program respects users’ settings is to test using a different font size and a high contrast color scheme. All text should resize and display correctly in the chosen color scheme.

How to change default system font on Windows 10

Source: Windows Central

On Windows 10, you can change the default system font, but you now have to make changes to the Registry to complete this task.

In older versions like Windows 7, the Control Panel included personalization settings to change the system font for many visual elements on the desktop, such as File Explorer, icons, title bars, menus, message boxes, and more. However, for some reason, Windows 10 removed these settings, and you are now stuck with the default system font.

However, it is possible to change the «Segoe UI» default font on Windows 10, if that is something you want to do. Now, it just takes a few more steps using the Registry.

In this Windows 10 guide, we will walk you through the steps to change the default system font for most desktop elements.

How to change default font on Windows 10

To change the system font on Windows 10, use these steps:

Warning: This is a friendly reminder that editing the Registry is risky and can cause irreversible damage to your installation if you don’t do it correctly. It’s recommended to make a full backup of your PC before proceeding. Alternatively, you can create a system restore point, which will also help you revert the changes.

1. Open Start.
2. Search for Notepad and click the top result to open the text editor.

Copy and paste the following Registry code onto the file:

Select the font family you want to use.

Source: Windows Central

Note the official name of the font family – for example, Courier New.

Source: Windows Central

In the Notepad text with the Registry code, replace «NEW-FONT-NAME» with the name of the font you want to use in the entire system – for example, Courier New.

Source: Windows Central

Use the «Save as type» drop-down menu and select the All Files option.

Source: Windows Central

Right-click the newly created «.reg» file and select the Merge option.

Source: Windows Central

Click the Yes button.

Click the OK button.

Restart the computer.

Once you complete the steps, the new font should be available throughout the desktop visual elements, including File Explorer, message box, taskbar, and apps that use the system default font settings.

Although you can select from a lot of different fonts, it is recommended to choose a style that is easy to understand since fonts like Webdings or Wingdings use symbols, and they can cause issues to the installation.

How to restore default system font on Windows 10

If you change your mind, you can always restore the previous settings using the Registry or using a restore point.

Undo settings with Registry

To restore the default font settings on Windows 10, use these steps:

1. Open Start.
2. Search for Notepad and click the top result to open the text editor.

Copy and paste the following Registry code onto the file:

Use the «Save as type» drop-down menu and select the All Files option.

Source: Windows Central

Right-click the newly created «.reg» file and select the Merge option.

Source: Windows Central

Click the Yes button.

Click the OK button.

After you complete the steps, the Windows 10 default font should rollback to the previous configuration.

Undo settings with Restore point

Alternatively, you could also use a previous restore point created before modifying the font settings to undo the changes. However, use this option as a last resort, since depending on when you are restoring the system, the feature may also undo other system changes you may have configured after the restore point was created.

To undo system changes, use these steps:

1. Open Start.
2. Search for Create a restore point and select the top result to open the app.
3. Click the System Protection tab.

Click the System Restore button.

Source: Windows Central

Select the restore point you created before applying the settings.

Source: Windows Central

Click the Next button.

Click the Finish button.

Once you complete the steps, the system will need to be restarted to finish the process.

More Windows 10 resources

For more helpful articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources:

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