If you have a slightly older bitmap screen, non-serif fonts like this are valuable.
A bunch of typesetters I worked for with used a low-kerning sans-serif font for proofing on computer screens. They ensured it had the same spacing as their production serif font.
It looked icky.
When they did my wedding announcement, I thought they was going to look terrible. Instead, the cards came off the printer looking absolutely lovely.
However, I now have a fairly high bit density screen on both my
laptop and my main home screen. On it, well-kerned serif fonts
don't just look good, they give me a reading speed just below that
of my e-ink Kobo.
And yes, reading speed is the usual metric, just not the only one. Other good ones are
--dave
On 2025-08-17 02:09, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
In a previous life one of my main functions was publication design; fonts are important to me.
There are two font families that I usually install on all my systems:
* For maximum legibility, Lexend <https://www.lexend.com/>.
If the reading speed of your users is more important to you than
fashion statements, this family is worth considering. It's the
result of many years of research.
They need to do more research! Lexend font breaks my rhythm. It forces me to read letters, to check the spelling. With Times New Roman, I read the whole word, multiple words (if short), or phrase in one shot. If it looks right, then spelling is probably right. Maybe, because I'm so used to Times family...
I just found out Tinos and Liberation Serif are identical, at least to my eye. Flipping back and forth, no change to my document.
* For maximal internationalization, Noto <https://fonts.google.com/noto>.
Rather than need separate fonts for Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic, etc
Google's Noto has more Unicode language scripts embedded than any
other in a single font.
Plus a few others of note:
* For a change of pace, Comic Neue <https://theconversation.com/is-
comic-neue-the-new-comic-sans-sans-the-comedy-25697>.
Started as a Kickstarter project <https://www.kickstarter.com/
projects/805738475/comic-neue>, this font corrects the typographical
shortcomings of Comic Sans while keeping its (IMO underrated) casual
character.
* For a distinctly FOSS character, Ubuntu. <https://github.com/
canonical/Ubuntu-Sans-fonts>
While the Liberation font family was funded by Red Hat, the Ubuntu
font was supported by -- surprise! -- Canonical and has been a part
of the Ubuntu distro since 10.10.
All of the above are available at Google Fonts or the links provided above -- unlike the Liberation family, which ironically is not available that way because of licensing issues(*). (Those wanting freely-available equivalents to Liberation are encouraged to check out the Apache- licensed Croscore fonts <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croscore_fonts> used in ChromeOS.
(*) Liberation fronts are released under the GPL. One interpretation suggests that any document embedding a GPL font is itself subject to the GPL. That posed a possible risk that have inhibited its use, and likely explains why these fonts are not available on Google Fonts. Most open source fonts use either the Apache or the SIL license.
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