I am Matt Thomas.

Commentary

1. Vladimir February 12, 2007, 11:30 am ℘

   After seeing these new fonts, installing PowerPoint 2007 and seeing their practical application here on your site, you’ve convinced me to follow suit. My site is currently under redesign and after checking out each font, I replaced my serif fonts with Constantia (same as you, ahead of Georgia) and my sans-serif body copy with Corbel (ahead of Trebuchet MS).

   I’ve only just recently gotten to know more about typography and how truly important it is to the usability and aesthetic quality of a page. And even considering its Microsoft, they’ve done themselves proud this time around. Constantia is definitely a favorite and Corbel is an excellent sans-serif. A fitting replacement to that atrocity Arial.

2. Sean S February 13, 2007, 12:00 am ℘

   Is it just me or does Constantia Bold not have any numbers? Of course, it could be the version I happened to find online.

3. Matt Thomas February 13, 2007, 12:48 am ℘

   Hah! Yeah, Sean, you should probably try getting it from the PowerPoint Viewer installer. It’s got numbers—bold, beautiful, old style numbers.

4. Vladimir February 13, 2007, 6:44 pm ℘

   Just saw your update. Unfortunately I have no access to a Mac with these fonts installed. Do you have any idea how Corbel renders in Mac/Firefox? I’m using it for body copy and want to make sure its readable across the board.

5. Matt Thomas February 13, 2007, 7:03 pm ℘

   Can’t really say, but I’ve noticed it only seems to be a problem for Constantia at <14px.

6. Vladimir February 13, 2007, 8:17 pm ℘

   Okay, well if its only an issue under 14px then I don’t imagine I’ll run into many problems with my purposes.

7. Richard Rutter March 4, 2007, 6:10 am ℘

   The issue you are seeing on Firefox/Mac applies to all OpenType fonts, not just the new Vista ones. The problem will be fixed with Firefox 3 and Camino 2. FYI I’ve done some research into Firefox/Mac’s rendering of different types of font file:

   http://clagnut.com/blog/1854/

   Essentially the only type of font that Firefox/Mac renders correctly is TrueType (Mac flavour). Note that Safari renders all font types beautifully (including Constantia on this page).

8. Add Windows Vista fonts to your stylesheets | The Montoya Herald March 6, 2007, 2:23 pm ℘

   [...] Matt Thomas explains how you can download Windows Vista fonts for free, legally. Join in on the fun, Mac/Linux [...]

9. Jason Lefkowitz March 6, 2007, 4:14 pm ℘

   I’m confused. The link points to a page where I can download the PowerPoint Viewer—which is distributed as a .EXE file. What do I do with that if I’m not on Windows? How do you get to the fonts if you’re on, say, a Linux box? WINE?

   I ask because I’m dying for Consolas in my editor…

10. Matt Thomas March 6, 2007, 5:47 pm ℘

    Jason: Unfortunately, that’s the only way Microsoft has, so far, chosen to make them available. So you’ll need access to a copy of Windows to download the fonts. In the past, Microsoft has made their collection of web fonts freely available on their web site, so here’s hoping they eventually take the same approach with the ClearType collection.

11. AboutDigital » Blog Archive » шрифты Windows vista - легально March 7, 2007, 3:08 am ℘

    [...] Via. Похожие заметкиМаленькие и замечательные #1HOWTO : Включение поддержки ntfs в Fedora Core 3InkScapeПесочница для вашего сайта #2Picasa Web Albums [...]

12. afoo March 7, 2007, 3:11 am ℘

    You don’t need Windows to get this fonts. Download the PowerPointViewer.exe from the site linked above, copy it to a newly created directory, then do (I am assuming a Debian based OS):

    $ sudo aptitude install cabextract
    $ cabextract PowerPointViewer.exe
    $ cabextract ppviewer.cab
    $ ls *TTF

    then rejoice.

    HTH

13. Global Nerdy » Blog Archive » How to Get Six New Fonts Included with Vista, Legally AND For Free! March 7, 2007, 12:01 pm ℘

    [...] Matt Thomas points out an easy way to get these fonts without having to fork out the money for Vista and without resorting to illegal copying: by downloading the PowerPoint 2007 Viewer application (which lets you “play” PowerPoint decks without requiring you to have the full-blown version of PowerPoint 2007.) Part of the installation process is installing the six Vista fonts shown above. [...]

14. Microsoft’s great new Vista fonts available free | rich text March 7, 2007, 10:50 pm ℘

    [...] here’s how to get the fonts out of the installer if you’re in Linux, at least. I don’t know if the same technique [...]

15. /brainfish // Neue Vista-Schriften auch unter Mac OS X nutzen March 8, 2007, 8:14 am ℘

    [...] Hinweis stammt ursprünglich von Matt Thomas, der entdeckt hat, dass der PPT-Viewer 2007 diese Schriften [...]

16. Rachanont » Vista ClearType Fonts March 8, 2007, 11:18 am ℘

    [...] ข้างล่างนี้คือ ฟอนท์เคลียร์ไทป์ ที่ติดมากับ Windows Vista แต่เราสามารถ เอามาใช้อย่างถูกกฎหมาย ได้ใน Windows XP โดยดาวโหลด PowerPoint Viewer 2007 ที่ดาวโหลดได้ฟรี มาติตตั้ง ซึ่งมันจะติดตั้งฟอนท์ ทั้งหกตัวนี้ให้เราด้วย ทำให้เราสามารถเอามาใช้ใน OpenOffice.org ได้ แต่น่าเสียดาย ที่มันไม่มีฟอนท์ไทย แต่เอามาใช้ กับภาษาอังกฤษก็สวยดีครับMatt Thomas [...]

17. Matt Thomas » OpenType Fonts in Firefox March 13, 2007, 4:13 pm ℘

    [...] on text rending in Firefox, and made the connection between the two after Richard Rutter left a comment directing me to his own comparison. I took a bit of time today to download the latest development [...]

18. Erik K. Fritz March 16, 2007, 2:49 pm ℘

    I stumbled upon this article as I was trying to track down these fonts (and this discussion) when designing a new site. Interestingly enough, when I switched over to my Mac and tried to access your site from Safari, Safari promptly crashed. Tried it again, just make sure, same result. Maybe it’s just Safari, I thought. Nope, Firefox on Mac, while it doesn’t crash, hangs and has to be force-quit. Best I can tell, it’s something to do with the Flickr-bits at the bottom, but that’s really just a guess based on what’s trying to load when FF hangs.

    And sorry for leaving this in the comments, but I couldn’t find any other contact method.

19. Matt Thomas March 16, 2007, 2:52 pm ℘

    Erik: Thanks for the heads-up. I use Safari almost exclusively as my main browser (I’m using it to write this comment), and have looked at this site in Firefox hundreds of times, and I don’t have the same problem on either of my Macs. But I’ll definitely try to delve deeper and see what could be causing the problem for you.

20. Tina Herringshaw March 20, 2007, 7:52 am ℘

    Hi Guys,

    Im working in Illustrator and need to download the new Calibri vista font to use in Illustrator. Would anyone know how I can do this, preferably for free, and I have a mac.
    Many thanks

21. Alister Cameron // Blogologist March 21, 2007, 5:02 am ℘

    Matt,

    I have done the same, but with Calibri.

    My site redesign went live about 18 hours ago.

    Because of the particulars of Calibri’s font metrics, I had to bump up the size quite a lot to get it right. But when I tried using Lucida Grande (my second preference) as a fallback font, it was HUGE!

    So, my fallback font is Trebuchet, because it too renders quite small, relative to other fonts, and (sort of) gets the text wrapping in the same places, etc… I’m sure you know what I mean!

    Hope you like what I’ve done. Comments welcome!

22. Idiotprogrammer » Archive » Ebook Creation Links April 16, 2007, 12:39 pm ℘

    [...] New Vista Fonts (& how to download for xp) [...]

23. Idiotprogrammer » Archive » Vista Fonts..How to Download, How to use April 16, 2007, 1:48 pm ℘

    [...] can download the defaults by downloading the Powerpoint 2007 free viewer.  Here’s Christian Montoya on recommended Vista substitutions for web [...]

24. Omer May 6, 2007, 9:41 am ℘

    I’d like to thank you all for all of these posts, you guys have been uber-helpful. Thanx!

25. Yvonne May 11, 2007, 4:17 am ℘

    I am running Office 2002 on Windows XP and have installed the Powerpoint 2007 as a means of getting the new Office 2007 fonts. They are installed in my Windows Fonts folder and I can use them in WordPad, however, they do not appear in my list of available fonts in Office. The only way I can use them is to cut and paste from WordPad into Word and that’s more trouble than it’s worth! Can anyone help?

26. irene May 18, 2007, 12:52 am ℘

    i have a problem i had to do a project to do foe school and i saved the project in vista and the computers in school have windowsXP and i couldn’t oppened it, why???

27. Clyde May 18, 2007, 3:15 pm ℘

    Tina, you can download fink and then install cabextract:

    $ fink install cabextract

    and then follow the description given for Linux:

    $ cabextract PowerPointViewer.exe
    $ cabextract ppviewer.cab
    $ ls *TTF

28. Bill Davis June 7, 2007, 8:39 am ℘

    The Microsoft ClearType Font Collection can now be legally purchased as a software download outside of a Microsoft product. This means you can now acquire a license to use in previous versions of Windows, other applications or other operating systems.

    The fonts can be found here: http://www.ascendercorp.com/ctfonts.html

    Ascender Corporation has an agreement with Microsoft to distribute the Microsoft ClearType Font Collection – the fonts can be purchased individually, in families or in a complete package.

    I work for Ascender and am proud to make this announcement.

29. Calibri and Cambria Horribly Broken on Firefox for Mac // Steve Cochrane September 29, 2007, 4:32 pm ℘

    [...] also: Constantia has terrible letter spacing in Firefox for Mac as [...]

30. spitfire October 19, 2007, 1:04 pm ℘

    According to that powerpoint download page, you can only use the fonts on devices running Windows. Did they add that to the licence?

31. Anonymous Coward October 19, 2007, 4:26 pm ℘

    Microsoft has offered these fonts up for some time now: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/office/preview/beta/converter.mspx
    Of course this is a 27MB file, and the Power Point viewier is a bit smaller (only 25MB)

    Also, if you intend to install the new Clear Type fonts on operating systems other than Microsoft Windows, then you should check out the EULA ammendment:

    Font Components
    You may use the fonts that accompany the PowerPoint Viewer only to display and print content from a device running a Microsoft Windows operating system. Additionally, you may do the following:

    * Embed fonts in content as permitted by the embedding restrictions in the fonts
    * When printing content, temporarily download the fonts to a printer or other output device

    You may not copy, install or use the fonts on other devices.

32. Marko October 19, 2007, 6:11 pm ℘

    To Bill Davis: You can’t seriously be selling these fonts for $299?! I mean, you can buy most editions of Vista for less – fonts and a free operating system! How can you possibly justify this price?

33. Matt Thomas October 19, 2007, 6:12 pm ℘

    Creating type is expensive and time-consuming. I’ve paid over $300 for a single typeface before. I realize that compared to Vista it does seem expensive, but you’ve got to take into account that Microsoft is subsidizing the cost of the typefaces for users of its operating system. Mac OS X also comes with some beautiful type that, purchased separately, would be many times the cost of a copy of OS X.

34. Manny October 19, 2007, 8:56 pm ℘

    Looks like the Firefox on Mac font rendering problem has been solved on the latest nightly build of 3.0. Calibri lookin great! No more spacing problems.

35. Manny October 19, 2007, 8:56 pm ℘

    See here:
    http://auspundits.typepad.com/auspundits/2007/10/briefly-firefox.html

36. Zivo NiX BLog » Downloading and Using Vista Web Fonts October 23, 2007, 3:37 pm ℘

    [...] Cleartype Fonts [...]

37. Benji November 6, 2007, 7:06 pm ℘

    In addition to Vista’s new core fonts it’s also worth everyone’s while to install the Liberation font set for all the linux users and embedded devices that are out in the world.

    More information about the Liberation fonts:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts

    You can download the fonts from here:
    https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/

38. clueless November 12, 2007, 2:05 pm ℘

    i downloaded the viewer on my PC. THe fonts come up in the font folder, but are not recognized in Office pr any other programs. I’m not too familiar with programming. What can i do to use these files in other programs?

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