MS Sans Serif
Encyclopedia
MS Sans Serif is a proportional raster font introduced in Windows 1.x
as "Helv". It changed to its current name starting with Windows 3.1. It is the default system font
on Windows 3.1, Windows 95
, Windows NT 4.0
, Windows 98
, and Windows ME
. It shares spots with typefaces like Terminal, Fixedsys
, and System
. Starting from Windows 2000
, the default desktop scheme uses Tahoma
(MS Sans Serif is still used on some dialog boxes). MS Sans Serif was available in the font sizes 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, and 24. When changing dpi settings in Windows 95 or later (in Windows 3.1, dpi setting is tied to screen resolution, depending on driver information file), Windows is configured to load a different MS Sans Serif font, historically called the "8514" variant.
Today, the font is still available in Windows XP
, Vista
, and possibly 7 because the Euro
was included, and is still used in menus, dialog boxes, etc. The name "Helv" is still used in Windows as a synonym for MS Sans Serif.
MS Sans Serif is very similar in design to Arial
and Helvetica
(the latter being the source of the abbreviated name "Helv").
font that is designed as a vectorized, metric-compatible variant of MS Sans Serif, first distributed with Windows 2000 and later (designed by Microsoft
). This font also contains most glyphs shipped with any version of Windows until Windows Vista, excluding fonts supporting East Asian ideographs. The PostScript font name is MicrosoftSansSerif.
Despite being a vectorized replacement, there are subtle design changes. For example, the tail in lowercase a is shortened to vertical stem in Microsoft Sans Serif, the top of the stem lowercase f curves down instead of horizontally, the hook at the descenders of y and j are hooked up in Microsoft Sans Serif, the strokes in the middle of digit 8 intersect at a different angle. Capital R, which was designed in the style of original Helvetica in the original MS Sans Serif, is instead a compromise between Helvetica and the straight-diagonal descender in Arial; the descender curves at the top and is a straight diagonal at the bottom.
Version 1.10 of the font includes 1119 glyphs (1209 characters, 26 blocks), supporting Unicode ranges Alphabetic Presentation forms, Arabic, Arabic Presentation forms A-B, Cyrillic, General Punctuation, Greek and Coptic
, Hebrew, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended-B, Latin Extended Additional, Mathematical Operators, Thai. Supported code pages include 1250-1258, Macintosh US Roman, 874, 864, 862, 708. Font is smoothed at 0-6 points, hinted at 7-14 points, hinted and smoothed at 15 and above points. OpenType features includes init, isol, medi, fina, liga for default Arabic script.
Version 1.41 includes 2257 glyphs (2301 characters, 28 blocks), which extended Unicode ranges to include Combining Diacritical Marks, Currency Symbols, Cyrillic Supplement, Geometric Shapes, Greek Extended, IPA Extensions, Number Forms, Spacing Modifier Letters. New OpenType scripts include Arabic MAR script. Additional OpenType features includes rlig for Arabic scripts.
Version 5.00 includes 3053 glyphs (2788 characters, 36 blocks), which extended Unicode ranges to include Arabic Supplement, Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement, Combining Half Marks, Latin Extended-C, Latin Extended-D, Phonetic Extensions, Phonetic Extensions Supplement, Specials, Superscripts and Subscripts. New OpenType scripts include Arabic URD (Urdu), Cyrillic (default), Hebrew (default), Latin (default, Romanian), Thai (default). Additional OpenType features includes ccmp, mark, mkmk for Arabic scripts; locl for Arabic URD (Urdu) script; mark, mkmk for default Cyrillic; dlig, ccmp, mark for default Hebrew; ccmp, mark, mkmk for Latin scripts; locl for Romanian Latin; ccmp, mark, mkmk for Thai.
The Latin Microsoft Sans Serif glyphs are also used in this font: Kartika. Panosed as Cove, but the ttf font is panosed as sans.
("Leopard"), would include Microsoft Sans Serif. Leopard also ships with several other previously Microsoft-only fonts, including Tahoma
, Arial Unicode, and Wingdings
.
OS/2
and its variant eComStation
still name the font "Helv".
Retail versions of the font are sold through Ascender Corporation
.
Windows 1.0
Windows 1.0 is a 16-bit graphical operating environment, developed by Microsoft and released on 20 November 1985. It was Microsoft's first attempt to implement a multi-tasking graphical user interface-based operating environment on the PC platform. Windows 1.0 was the first version of Windows...
as "Helv". It changed to its current name starting with Windows 3.1. It is the default system font
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
on Windows 3.1, Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
, Windows NT 4.0
Windows NT 4.0
Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996...
, Windows 98
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
, and Windows ME
Windows Me
Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....
. It shares spots with typefaces like Terminal, Fixedsys
Fixedsys
Fixedsys is a family of raster monospaced fonts. The name means fixed system, although it is often pronounced "fixed size" because its glyphs are monospace or fixed-width...
, and System
System (typeface)
System is a family of proportional raster fonts distributed with Microsoft Windows. The font family contains fonts encoded in several Windows code pages, with multiple resolutions of the font for each code page. Fonts of different code pages have different point sizes...
. Starting from Windows 2000
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
, the default desktop scheme uses Tahoma
Tahoma (typeface)
Tahoma is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for the Microsoft Corporation in 1994 with initial distribution along with Verdana for Windows 95....
(MS Sans Serif is still used on some dialog boxes). MS Sans Serif was available in the font sizes 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, and 24. When changing dpi settings in Windows 95 or later (in Windows 3.1, dpi setting is tied to screen resolution, depending on driver information file), Windows is configured to load a different MS Sans Serif font, historically called the "8514" variant.
Today, the font is still available in Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
, Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
, and possibly 7 because the Euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
was included, and is still used in menus, dialog boxes, etc. The name "Helv" is still used in Windows as a synonym for MS Sans Serif.
MS Sans Serif is very similar in design to Arial
Arial
Arial, sometimes marketed or displayed in software as Arial MT, is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts. Fonts from the Arial family are packaged with Microsoft Windows, some other Microsoft software applications, Apple Mac OS X and many PostScript 3 computer printers...
and Helvetica
Helvetica
Helvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann.-Visual distinctive characteristics:Characteristics of this typeface are:lower case:square dot over the letter i....
(the latter being the source of the abbreviated name "Helv").
Microsoft Sans Serif
Microsoft Sans Serif is a TrueTypeTrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
font that is designed as a vectorized, metric-compatible variant of MS Sans Serif, first distributed with Windows 2000 and later (designed by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
). This font also contains most glyphs shipped with any version of Windows until Windows Vista, excluding fonts supporting East Asian ideographs. The PostScript font name is MicrosoftSansSerif.
Despite being a vectorized replacement, there are subtle design changes. For example, the tail in lowercase a is shortened to vertical stem in Microsoft Sans Serif, the top of the stem lowercase f curves down instead of horizontally, the hook at the descenders of y and j are hooked up in Microsoft Sans Serif, the strokes in the middle of digit 8 intersect at a different angle. Capital R, which was designed in the style of original Helvetica in the original MS Sans Serif, is instead a compromise between Helvetica and the straight-diagonal descender in Arial; the descender curves at the top and is a straight diagonal at the bottom.
Version 1.10 of the font includes 1119 glyphs (1209 characters, 26 blocks), supporting Unicode ranges Alphabetic Presentation forms, Arabic, Arabic Presentation forms A-B, Cyrillic, General Punctuation, Greek and Coptic
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
, Hebrew, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended-B, Latin Extended Additional, Mathematical Operators, Thai. Supported code pages include 1250-1258, Macintosh US Roman, 874, 864, 862, 708. Font is smoothed at 0-6 points, hinted at 7-14 points, hinted and smoothed at 15 and above points. OpenType features includes init, isol, medi, fina, liga for default Arabic script.
Version 1.41 includes 2257 glyphs (2301 characters, 28 blocks), which extended Unicode ranges to include Combining Diacritical Marks, Currency Symbols, Cyrillic Supplement, Geometric Shapes, Greek Extended, IPA Extensions, Number Forms, Spacing Modifier Letters. New OpenType scripts include Arabic MAR script. Additional OpenType features includes rlig for Arabic scripts.
Version 5.00 includes 3053 glyphs (2788 characters, 36 blocks), which extended Unicode ranges to include Arabic Supplement, Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement, Combining Half Marks, Latin Extended-C, Latin Extended-D, Phonetic Extensions, Phonetic Extensions Supplement, Specials, Superscripts and Subscripts. New OpenType scripts include Arabic URD (Urdu), Cyrillic (default), Hebrew (default), Latin (default, Romanian), Thai (default). Additional OpenType features includes ccmp, mark, mkmk for Arabic scripts; locl for Arabic URD (Urdu) script; mark, mkmk for default Cyrillic; dlig, ccmp, mark for default Hebrew; ccmp, mark, mkmk for Latin scripts; locl for Romanian Latin; ccmp, mark, mkmk for Thai.
The Latin Microsoft Sans Serif glyphs are also used in this font: Kartika. Panosed as Cove, but the ttf font is panosed as sans.
Non-Microsoft operating systems
On October 16, 2007, Apple announced on their website that the next version of their flagship operating system, Mac OS X v10.5Mac OS X v10.5
Mac OS X Leopard is the sixth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on 26 October 2007 as the successor of Tiger , and is available in two variants: a desktop version suitable for personal computers, and a...
("Leopard"), would include Microsoft Sans Serif. Leopard also ships with several other previously Microsoft-only fonts, including Tahoma
Tahoma (typeface)
Tahoma is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for the Microsoft Corporation in 1994 with initial distribution along with Verdana for Windows 95....
, Arial Unicode, and Wingdings
Wingdings
Wingdings are a series of dingbat fonts which render letters as a variety of symbols. They were originally developed in 1990 by Microsoft by combining glyphs from Lucida Icons, Arrows, and Stars licensed from Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes...
.
OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
and its variant eComStation
EComStation
eComStation or eCS is a PC operating system based on OS/2, published by Serenity Systems. It includes several additions and accompanying software not present in the IBM version of the system.-Differences between eComStation and OS/2:...
still name the font "Helv".
Retail versions of the font are sold through Ascender Corporation
Ascender Corporation
Ascender Corporation is a digital typeface foundry and software development company located in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, Illinois in the United States...
.