Tahoma (typeface)

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Tahoma
Typeface Tahoma
Category Sans-serif
Designer(s) Matthew Carter
Foundry Monotype

Tahoma is a sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for the Microsoft Corporation in 1994 with initial distribution along with Verdana for Windows 95.

Tahoma is very similar to Verdana but with a narrower body, less generous counters, tighter letterspacing, and a more complete Unicode character set. Designed from the start as a bitmap rather than outlines, the bold weight is heavy. Being based upon a double pixel width the bold weight is more similar to a heavy or black weight.

Though often compared with the humanist sans-serif typeface Frutiger, in an interview with Daniel Will-Harris, Matthew Carter acknowledges some similarities with his earlier typeface Bell Centennial. [1]

It is also the default screen font used by Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 (replacing MS Sans Serif) and is also used for Sega's Dreamcast. Bundled for inclusion in the font libraries of both Mac and PC hardware the typeface is widely used as an alternative to Arial.

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Daniel Will-Harris. "Georgia & Verdana: Typefaces designed for the screen (finally)'" TypoFiles, retrieved January 16, 2007.

[edit] External links