Talk:Arial

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[edit] Pronuciation

what is the source for the claim 'There has been some debate about how Arial is correctly pronounced, and although people may be used to saying "air-ree-al", they are incorrect. The correct pronunciation is "are-ree-al".'?

I was about to ask the same questions. I'm deleting it. I've noticed a lot of articles say how things are "supposed" to be pronounced. That's an opinion and correctness is not applicable. The most you can do is quote someone saying what the correct pronounciation is. Theshibboleth 07:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I suppose the correct spelling of 'pronunciation' is a matter of opinion, too. Grant 11:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I have an email from the manufacturer stating that the pronunciation is like "aerial." Appropriate to include this? Herbivore 17:20, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

If you can include the full e-mail as a reference. However, having pronunciation guides in anything other than IPA is not recommended. Not only is English spelling not consistent, but there are also large pronunciation differences between speakers from different areas. Shinobu 07:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology of the Name?

Anyone know it? 205.157.110.11 01:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Probably influenced by "Ariel" (old alternative name of Jerusalem, and name of a spirit in Shakespeare's Tempest) and "Aerial", I would assume... AnonMoos (talk) 10:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Formality Opinion

I always thought about the "Helevetica vs. Arial" conflict like this: Arial is for informal writing like e-mails, and helevetica is for more formal writing, like on a business letter. But since arial is on the computers, it gets used everywhere. Arial always looked "less polished" of a typeface to me, though. What do you all think??? Threedog 19:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that Helvetica is a more 'elegant' typeface to the trained eye. On the other hand, it is a fact that the Group standard typeface for all Royal Bank of Scotland letter correspondence is Arial MT, while for NatWest it is Helvetica (for main body text - proprietary NatWest fonts are used for headers, legal footers etc). Go figure...
155.136.80.161 17:32, 12 November 2007 (UTC)Stewart Pinkerton, Document Solutions, Royal Bank of Scotland Group
There are other sans-serif typefaces (such as Gill Sans) which are far more elegant than either... AnonMoos (talk) 11:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Helvetica vs. Univers

The article makes the following assertion:

"However, a close examination of Helvetica, Arial, and Univers reveals that the latter two are in many respects more similar than the former two"

Despite the hedge "in many respects", this sentence implies that Arial is more similar to Univers than to Helvetica -- which is totally false. Arial and Helvetica are almost indistinguishable. While Arial may share a small number of features with Univers, it is still much closer to Helvetica -- witness the fact that it is universally known as a Helvetica clone, not a Univers clone. I'm leaning towards rewriting the sentence to something more neutral, more like "Arial shares certain features with Univers." Any thoughts on this? WillNL 18:24, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm tempted to agree. Only some characters (1, G, t and possibly other ones?) actually share some Univers features. All the rest is a sort of mix between Helvetica and Grotesque MT. On the other hand, I wouldn't say that "Arial and Helvetica are almost indistinguishable". To an untrained eye, certainly. But not to a trained eye or a typeface enthusiast like me (differences between the two look flagrant to me).
Dioxaz 22:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Considerations of which are more similar aside, can I just say that this is one of the most tortured sentences I've ever seen on Wikipedia? I've been tempted to change it for some time, but for some reason I've left it. I suppose it is out of grudging respect for the impressively convoluted phrasing. –Joke 21:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] google analytics reports

This font (arial mt or arialmt) is used in the email reports sent by google analytics. It's pretty ugly too! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Family Guy Guy (talk • contribs) 20:48, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unverified claims and other issues

I made a series of edits today to acknowledge a number of issues mainly relating to the comparisons of Arial to Helvetica and Univers.

  • The intro section is not the place to publish any material that is unverifiable. Controversies are best characterized in vague terms, with details given later in the article, where they can be tagged as needed for failure to cite sources. Therefore I moved the Arial-Univers comparison to the 'Typographic tempest' section and left a more terse statement in the intro.
  • There appear to be no reliable sources to verify that Microsoft wanted to avoid licensing costs in general, and that it wanted to imitate Helvetica in particular. Can someone provide such a source?
  • Similarly, there appear to be no reliable sources to verify that Arial was developed to fill this perceived need. Can someone provide such a source?
  • The claim that Arial was derived from Monotype Grotesque appears to be speculation by Mark Simonson. This claim is repeated twice in the article. Is there a more reliable source for it?
  • Many statements in the article were variations on the theme of Arial being a cheap Helvetica knockoff. I attempted to reduce the amount of redundancy for its own sake, but also to avoid putting in that many more "citation needed" tags.
  • The statement "The inclusion of Arial with Windows has made it one of the most widely distributed typefaces in the world" seemed to belong in the Distribution section, not the Typographic Tempest section, so I moved it. If Arial's ubiquity is also a factor in its being held in low regard, then that connection should be made more explicit (and sources cited).
  • It wasn't clear what effect Arial's designers being relatively unknown had on the negative perception of Arial. I'm guessing the intent was to imply that unknown designers charge less, further bolstering the impression that Arial is "cheap". But maybe it was to imply that well-known designers wouldn't have risked their reputations to produce something so similar to Helvetica? Or perhaps it's just that well-known designers are prejudiced and hate whatever their lesser-known counterparts produce? Clarification is needed; I went with the first explanation but would prefer something more concrete.
  • The article makes conflicting claims: Arial is shipped with "many" Postscript printers, but "most" Postscript printers substitute it with Helvetica. How can both of these claims be correct? I didn't do anything about this conflict.
  • The statement that Arial's glyph widths are identical to Helvetica's is plausible, but not obvious to a lay person; a source for this claim would be preferred. It's also not obvious whether and why this characteristic would be a reason to deride Arial. Surely there are lots of fonts that have similar glyph widths.
  • As more-or-less mentioned in previous discussion, the statement that Arial's most striking differences to Helvetica are actually things it has in common with Univers is pure original research, as far as I can tell. Cite a source for this. If the point is just to suggest that Arial should be hated for being a knockoff of not just Helvetica but Univers too, then this material is altogether inappropriate and should be removed.

I also made some relatively minor phrasing changes and copy edits to just be more consistent in neutrally characterizing the situation. If someone could research and address the issues above, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. —mjb 04:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I added some more references, and removed the conflicting "Helvetica is substituted with Arial" and the Univers stuff (since there didn't seem to be any basis for them). Since there are no more fact tags, I also removed the "needs references" tag.—Jlin 02:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting Fact

Is it worth mentioning that Arial is the font used by Wikipedia? If you want check that it is, click page>view source and read the css tags. I think this would be relevant to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.205.78.62 (talk) 20:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The font on Wikipedia pages displayed in your browser really depends on the Wikipedia skin you choose (assuming you you have a registered Wikipedia id), or whether your browser preferences override the fonts set up for the web page by one of your choosing. If you are using default settings, and are running your browser from a Windows environment, you should see Arial. Unfortunately, not all Wikipedia visitors will see Arial due to the reasons above, especially those not browsing from Windows or MacOS platforms where Arial may not be included in the distribution. --Chikinsawsage 22:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] copyright

It can be used on images? I mean, use it on a self-made work implies the recognition of some legal limitations? thanks190.21.213.196 (talk) 21:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)