Which font do you prefer to use when writing?

http://www.papyruswatch.com/

 

I use wordpad, and just started typing with the default font. I was unaware of it's name. I've just checked, and it's called Calibri (14). It looked ok to me so I didn't bother changing it. I didn't realize it was that important?

 

It's not, until you get to the submissions stage, and even then it isn't a deal breaker. It's just that there are certain fonts which professionals tend to use, so using something else will mark you out as someone who hasn't done too much research. I use TNR because nobody anywhere is going to object to it.

 

All this time I would have guessed I was working with Times New Roman. Just decided to check. I've been writing in something called Cambria for years. I don't really think about font too much while writing. Actually, not at all. Do you guys really feel that the font you choose has an effect on your writing or is it just what looks best to you?

 

Well if it's not Courier or TNR for some, well then nobody reads you - because you have not read their guidelines.

I have tried 'cut up & paste' and also green letters for the Bridport, to no success.

Often, remember your prose goes before tiers of readers, so needs to be proofed - past first level readers, people who like books and stuff, a real problem to reach a chief [at your level,] y'see?

 

See @Tenderiser's post above yours.

 

But I just realized I'm not writing and submitting in those fonts, and I have sold things and no one has ever said anything. I mean the font I am using looks pretty standard. I didn't even realize it wasn't Times New Roman. Anyway, I don't think it's too big of a deal when submitting as long as things look normal.

 

"]It's not, until you get to the submissions stage, and even then it isn't a deal breaker. It's just that there are certain fonts which professionals tend to use, so using something else will mark you out as someone who hasn't done too much research. I use TNR because nobody anywhere is going to object to it.[/QUOTE]

Thanks. TNR looks quite tight. I might try using that. Not that I'm professional or submitting my writing for print or anything - I started writing about 2 weeks ago lol. I will post my first story in the workshop section when I'm allowed

 

It is absolutely the main reason for your lack of success, to date.

 

TNR is a bit old persony..

 

That's OK, I am an old person according to my last birthday... just don't tell my brain, it thinks I'm still 25

 

That's quite normal @Brindy. The short-term memory suffers, I have seen this many times in my occupation as a husband professional.

 

Was that a joke?

 

Everything mat says is a joke.

 

I find Palatino Linotype to be the easiest on the eye, so I'm doing everything in that at the minute. From what people in this thread have said, I'll be compiling it all as TNR when I'm done.

Anyone know what publishers are like about bold and italics? I often use these for the voices in my character's head to give them distinction.

 

Bold would be... unusual. Italics are fine. Very occasionally you will see advice to underline words that are meant to appear as italics, but that's very outdated.

 

I do my essays in Times New Roman, and my books in Bookman Old Style, because that's what they're going to be printed with. But I agree that changing the font is sometimes a good way of catching typos and such.

 

When I'm doing all of my writing and editing on my laptop, my default is 12pt Arial. It's tidy, well-spaced, and doesn't draw attention to itself. My middle-aged eyes can read it easily. Sure, maybe it's boring, but if all goes well a book designer will eventually get paid to put it into something prettier. My job is to just write the story, so I don't think about the font.

If the book or story is such a mess that I need to work with a paper copy in order to beat it into proper shape, I change the font to 12pt Courier New, and line spacing to double. Courier is a wider font, and between that and the double-spacing I have a lot more room for handwritten annotations and emendations. But Courier's too wide for me to comfortably work with on a screen, and I don't need all that space within and between words unless I'm slashing away with a pen on paper, so it's only for printouts.

ETA: Oh, and I should add that it all ends up in TNR, come submissions time. If I was still sending paper instead of electrons, it would be Courier.

 

A monospaced typewriter-like font. I had to check to see what bbEdit (my preferred editor) is set to use, and it's Lucida Grande 11 point.

Huh. I think I just figured out why Scrivener "feels" wrong. Lucida Grande isn't monospaced, at least not in Scrivener. So I was using Monaco. But the characters look wrong. I want to feel like I'm in bbEdit.

Huh. Can I get Scrivener to make Lucida Grande monospaced?

Huh.

 

I use TNR. Mostly because I started writing way back on Corel Word Perfect and that was the default font for that program. Now it just feels like home. It's a plus that in my research about publishing I've found what everyone else has already said here - submit in TNR. Convenient.

Papyrus and Comic Sans are used by anyone and everyone who thinks they can design something but never have before. They are the sure sign of someone who has know idea what they're doing. They are awful fonts.

 

Inspired by this forum, I started working on a short last night, decided to put it in Courier. It is a very crisp and easy to read font. I may have found a new default.

 

Does anyone know if the quality of fonts varies, depending on the software? I use OO and Courier on mine is not easy on the eye at all.

 

Times New Roman, ever and always. I never vary because as long as I can read the font, it's out of mind. And since it's going to change when the typesetters get hold of it, it really doesn't matter to me.

But the only reason I use TNR is because Times itself was under license in the early days of computers and therefore was never used as a standard serif font because none of the OS companies wanted to pay the licensing fees. TNR was the Microsoft lookalike for Times. I don't remember what Apple or any of the others used.

 

I don't think it's a joke. It's more like a statement about how unimportant font selection is to the writing process. Perhaps the original post was the joke?

 

Font-rendering engines do vary, but if you were to convert to RTF or DOC and someone else opened it in Word, they wouldn't see the sloppy font rendering you yourself have been subjected to.

Fonts are part of the OS, not the word processor.