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Windows Vista fonts in Windows XP
Microsoft Windows is undoubtedly the dominant operating system in the market. One of the consequences of this fact is the Internet is dominated by the typography used in the Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Most of the web sites on the Internet are developed by and for the Microsoft Windows operating system.
Due to this fact, any new development that concerns the typography and fonts present in the Microsoft Windows operating system is bound to have a great impact on the typography used in the Internet.
Microsoft and Internet Typography
Microsoft has introduced a new series of font families in Windows Vista that will undoubtedly become ever more widely available as Windows Vista begins to dominate the market. By consequence, this means that the Microsoft fonts that are being used on the Internet will also cede place to the new Microsoft fonts that will certainly dominate the market together with Windows Vista.
There are many computer users, especially proponents of the Open Source users, who cannot and will not accept such a state of affairs. The fact of life is, however, that the Microsoft fonts have always dominated and will dominate the Internet for the foreseeable future.
My personal opinion is that Microsoft typography, especially when used in conjunction with the Clear Type technology, is the best available today even when compared to what Mac OS X has to offer. Please see a separate article on how to turn Clear Type on in Windows XP/2003.
The Linux operating system still has to go quite some distance before it can match the Microsoft font technology.
The new Microsoft fonts
The new Microsoft fonts are the following: Calibri, Cambria, Candara (the main font used to build this web site), Consolas, Constantia and Corbel,
Install the new Microsoft fonts legally
The new Microsoft fonts are, as one would expect, not available for free to the general public. The main consequence of this fact is that a computer user needs to either have a specific license for these fonts (which is most highly unlikely), to use the Windows Vista operating system or to have a license for a Microsoft or a third party program that is licensed to use these fonts.
One such Microsoft program is the Powerpoint viewer that will enable computer users to view Powerpoint documents when they do not have a license to the full-fledged Microsoft Office suite.
The Powerpoint viewer is freely available for download from the Microsoft web site at this link.
To legally use the new Microsoft fonts you can simply install the Powerpoint viewer. The installation program will also install the newest Microsoft fonts on your system, provided that you use Windows XP/2003.
These fonts are best viewed with the Clear Type turned on.