Posted by Jukka K. Korpela on 12/20/06 08:14

Scripsit Toby Inkster:

> On Windows XP the full name of Lucida Sans is "Lucida Sans Unicode",

No, they are two distinct fonts. Their overall designs are similar (with
considerable differences in some details - see e.g. how "ft" looks on the
two fonts), but Lucida Sans Unicode has thicker lines. In 12pt size, it
looks semi-bold as compared with 12pt Lucida Sans. Moreover, as the name
suggests, Lucida Sans Unicode has a wider coverage of characters.

> "Trebuchet MS" is a similar, though not identical font,

Similar? Hardly, any more than being a sans serif font. Look at "g", the
typical indicator of font design style. Or look at "M", or "a".

> It should look a little closer to Lucida Sans than a
> typical sans serif font will,

I wouldn't bet on that. Trebuchet MS is in many ways a nice little font,
though its diacritics are awfully placed, but it's not a better replacement
for Lucida Sans than a randomly chosen sans serif font is, I would day.
Moreover, Trebuchet MS looks considerably smaller (because it _is_ smaller,
in the sense that for a typical font size, the average height of glyphs is
smaller in Trebuchet MS than in Lucida Sans of the same size).

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

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