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Beautiful New Segoe UI Fonts in Windows 7

After I installed with the Windows 7 Release candidate, I discovered that Windows 7 comes with some additional variants of the Segoe UI font that first shipped in Vista. I love the Segoe UI (and original Segoe font) and so it’s nice to see that we now have more typographic options with Windows 7.

 

  IN VISTA IN WINDOWS 7
Segoe UI (Regular) YES YES
Segoe UI Bold YES YES
Segoe UI Bold italic YES YES
Segoe UI Italic YES YES
Segoe UI Light NO YES
Segoe UI Semibold NO YES

 

THE WINDOWS 7 FONTS CONTROL PANEL

Let’s take this opportunity to explore the new Control Panel UI for fonts …

First launch the Control Panel

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Click Appearance and Customization

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Click Fonts

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Now we can see all the fonts on the system

 

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There are many of them, so type “segoe” in the Search Fonts box in the upper right

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And you’ll see the fonts with “Segoe” in their name.

Right-click on “Segoe UI” and select Open

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And now you’ll see the name Segoe UI fonts

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You can right click on each one and select Preview to see the font in Action…

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PREVIEWS

SEGOE UI REGULAR

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SEGOE UI LIGHT

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SEGOE UI ITALIC

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SEGOE UI BOLD

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SEGOE UI BOLD ITALIC

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SEGOE UI SEMIBOLD

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Published Sunday, May 03, 2009 9:14 AM by saveenr

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# Anith » Beautiful New Segoe UI Fonts in Windows 7

PingBack from http://www.anith.com/?p=34529

Sunday, May 03, 2009 1:11 PM by Anith » Beautiful New Segoe UI Fonts in Windows 7

# re: Beautiful New Segoe UI Fonts in Windows 7

I do not believe that the Segoe UI Light and Segoe UI Semibold weights have gone through the same rigorous hinting procedures as the original Segoe UI styles.

For example, it looks like counter control is not being used on the lower case letters b, d, p, and q. Look how their rounded overshoots and counter sizes are larger than they should be at normal "UI" font ppems. The numeral 1 in the Light weight and capital I in the Semibold weight also tends to protrude beyond the cap height at typical "UI" font ppems. I believe this may be because they are modifications of the outlines used in the Segoe marketing fonts to better match the style of the UI fonts.

The Light and Semibold weights also do not provide the same script and language support as the Regular and Bold weights. They have fewer glyphs overall (comparable to the original italic styles, which have no need for Arabic scripts, however). The OpenType feature sets are also divergent.

Developers should not presume to use these new alternative weights interchangeably with the originals. Depending on the users' display settings and locales, the users may experience a less than optimal result.

My guess is that these fonts were included mainly to render the text "Windows 7" in the fashion of "(semibold)Windows (light)7", to provide a consistent look with branding assets.

Perhaps these weights will receive more attention (and especially delta hinting for typical UI ppems) before Windows 7 ships.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 7:05 AM by Jason Thompson

# re: Beautiful New Segoe UI Fonts in Windows 7

I wish that there was a better support for non hinted (aliased) fonts. At present, Windows 7 does not respect user preference when the user has disabled font smoothing and turned off ClearType. Instead, Win 7 just smooths the text on the control panel, taskbar, shutdown menu, meny headers, etc... regardless of user choice.

Monday, August 24, 2009 1:24 AM by Potato

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