Microsoft have announced that Calibri will no longer be the default font in their applications. Those of you with long memories may recall that Calibri replaced Times New Roman as the default way back when Office 2007 was first released. Now they’ve decided it’s time for another change.
The new font is merely taking over default duties where Calibri is the incumbent, such as with Microsoft’s 365 apps. Whichever new font ends up declared as the winner will replace Calibri in that role.
To answer some of the queries:
- Calibri will remain available as an option – it’s being demoted, not removed entirely.
- Office 2019 will display these fonts natively. For correct display in older versions of Office apps you should embed the fonts in the options of the ‘save’ dialogue box.
- Segoe UI will remain the font-of-choice for Microsoft’s Windows and Web UIs
- You may need to enable ‘optional connected experiences’ in your Office apps to make the new fonts available to you.
There are five contenders and, if you want to influence the decision, you have a chance to do so here.
The choices are shown in the graphic below. Sadly, despite a few wags already suggesting them, Times New Roman, Wingdings, and Comic Sans are not going to make the cut as the new default.
You can read more about these fonts, their designers, and their inspirations, here.