U-turning on custom fonts

I used to recommend to stick to standard Windows fonts in order to avoid compatibility issues when presenting on other computers than your own. I am changing my mind, the risk of technical issues is still there, but the benefits of custom fonts is much greater.

Standard PC fonts (Times roman, Calibri, Arial, etc.) just do not look good. In dense body text, this is not such a big deal. But as PowerPoint slides get fewer and fewer text, their design start to look more like a poster with big headlines. And in posters, typography is a huge deal.

This post on the PowerPoint Ninja blog explains how to overcome compatibility issues by embedding your custom font inside the presentation. When you send it to someone else, she will see the correct font.

You can find your inspiration for fonts on one of the many fonts web sites, paying close attention to the small prints in books (they often mention which font was used) or through books like this one that I picked up in a Tel Aviv book store: 1000 Fonts (affiliate link).

4 comments

mattj2010-12-22 15:35:48

I've embedded fonts before, but some font types don't embed properly in Microsoft documents. I think it was an OpenType font that I had this problem with. I had to convert the document to a .pdf file for it to work. I don't understand the differences between the different font types. (not the serif, sans-serif, modern issue) but the differences between OpenType, TrueType, etc.

Perhaps a good topic for a future post?

web design perth2011-08-12 02:44:02

Determine also if this font's is compatible with other browsers.

Jan Schultink2010-12-22 15:58:39

Good suggestion, but I cannot write it yet as I do not understand these things either (yet).

Jim2010-12-22 20:18:18

This is a reason I prefer to always present with my own laptop (versions of PPT and video cards another), but that is not always possible.

One solution is to save the word as an image and reimport it. Might over-pixelate small fonts in body text, but as you say, the standard PC fonts are no big deal here. But big bold words should be OK.