Tahoma (typeface)
Encyclopedia
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
.
Similar to Verdana
, Tahoma has a narrower body, less generous counters
, much tighter letter spacing, and a more complete Unicode
character set. Tahoma was first designed as a bitmap font, and TrueType
outlines were "carefully wrapped" around those bitmaps. The bold weight was based upon a double pixel width, rendering it closer to a heavy or black weight. It has a distinct advantage over such fonts as Arial
for use with technical material in that uppercase "I" (eye) is distinguished from lowercase "l" (ell).
Tahoma is often compared to the humanist sans-serif typeface Frutiger
. In an interview with Daniel Will-Harris, Matthew Carter acknowledges some similarities with his earlier typeface Bell Centennial
.
The Tahoma typeface family was named after the Native American
name for the stratovolcano Mount Rainier
(Mount Tahoma) which is a prominent feature of the southern landscape around the Seattle metropolitan area.
, Office 2000
, and Office XP
, and was freely distributed with Word Viewer
97.
Tahoma was the default screen font used by Windows 2000
, Windows XP
, and Windows Server 2003
(replacing MS Sans Serif
) and was also used for Sega
's Dreamcast and Skype
. Bundled in the font library of Windows, the typeface was widely used as an alternative to Arial
.
In 2007, Apple announced that Tahoma would be bundled with the next version of Mac OS X v10.5
("Leopard"). Leopard also shipped with several other previously Microsoft-only fonts, including Microsoft Sans Serif, Arial Unicode, and Wingdings
.
project includes a free font (Wine Tahoma Regular and Wine Tahoma Bold) designed to have identical metrics to the Tahoma font. This was done because Tahoma is available by default on Windows, and many applications expect the font to be available. Before Wine included a Tahoma replacement font, some applications, such as Steam, would not display any text at all, rendering them nearly unusable.
Sans-serif
In typography, a sans-serif, sans serif or san serif typeface is one that does not have the small projecting features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without"....
typeface
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....
designed by Matthew Carter
Matthew Carter
Matthew Carter is a type designer. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Carter's career in type design has witnessed the transition from physical metal type to digital type...
for the Microsoft Corporation in 1994 with initial distribution along with Verdana
Verdana
Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography group...
for 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...
.
Similar to Verdana
Verdana
Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography group...
, Tahoma has a narrower body, less generous counters
Counter (typography)
In typography, a counter or aperture is an area entirely or partially enclosed by a letter form or a symbol . Letters containing closed counters include A, B, D, O, P, Q, R, a, b, d, e, g, o, p, and q. Letters containing open counters include c, f, h, i, s etc. The digits 0, 4, 6, 8, and 9 also...
, much tighter letter spacing, and a more complete Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
character set. Tahoma was first designed as a bitmap font, and TrueType
TrueType
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...
outlines were "carefully wrapped" around those bitmaps. The bold weight was based upon a double pixel width, rendering it closer to a heavy or black weight. It has a distinct advantage over such fonts as 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...
for use with technical material in that uppercase "I" (eye) is distinguished from lowercase "l" (ell).
Tahoma is often compared to the humanist sans-serif typeface Frutiger
Frutiger
Frutiger is a series of typefaces named after its designer, Adrian Frutiger. Initially available as a sans serif, it was later expanded to include ornamental and serif typefaces.-Distinctive characteristics:Characteristics of this typeface are:...
. In an interview with Daniel Will-Harris, Matthew Carter acknowledges some similarities with his earlier typeface Bell Centennial
Bell Centennial
Bell Centennial is a sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter in the period 1975–8. The typeface was commissioned by AT&T as a proprietary type to replace their then current directory typeface Bell Gothic on the occasion of AT&T’s one hundredth anniversary...
.
The Tahoma typeface family was named after the Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
name for the stratovolcano Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier is a massive stratovolcano located southeast of Seattle in the state of Washington, United States. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc, with a summit elevation of . Mt. Rainier is considered one of the most...
(Mount Tahoma) which is a prominent feature of the southern landscape around the Seattle metropolitan area.
Bundling
Tahoma was an official font supplied with Office 97Microsoft Office 97
Microsoft Office 97 was a major milestone release of Microsoft Office, which included hundreds of new features and improvements, introduced "Command Bars", a paradigm in which menus and toolbars were made more similar in capability and visual design featured natural language systems and...
, Office 2000
Microsoft Office 2000
Microsoft Office 2000 is a release of Microsoft Office that succeeded Microsoft Office 97 and was designed as a fully 32-bit and Y2K compliant version to match Windows 2000 features. All the Office 2000 applications have OLE 2 capacity, which allows moving data automatically between various...
, and Office XP
Microsoft Office XP
Microsoft Office XP is a productivity suite written and distributed by Microsoft for their Windows operating system. Released on March 5, 2001, it is the successor to Office 2000 and the predecessor to Office 2003, and was known as Office 10 in the early stages of its development cycle...
, and was freely distributed with Word Viewer
Microsoft Word Viewer
Microsoft Word Viewer is a standalone freeware program for Microsoft Windows that lets users who do not own Microsoft Word view and print documents that were created in Microsoft Office....
97.
Tahoma was the default screen font used by 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...
, 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...
, and Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...
(replacing MS Sans Serif
MS Sans Serif
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 was also used for Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
's Dreamcast and Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
. Bundled in the font library of Windows, the typeface was widely used as an alternative 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...
.
In 2007, Apple announced that Tahoma would be bundled with the next version of Mac OS X v10.5
Mac 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"). Leopard also shipped with several other previously Microsoft-only fonts, including Microsoft Sans Serif, 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...
.
Free replacement
The WineWine (software)
Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
project includes a free font (Wine Tahoma Regular and Wine Tahoma Bold) designed to have identical metrics to the Tahoma font. This was done because Tahoma is available by default on Windows, and many applications expect the font to be available. Before Wine included a Tahoma replacement font, some applications, such as Steam, would not display any text at all, rendering them nearly unusable.