Archive for the ‘Typography’ Category



Typography: Revisiting My Choice of Calibri

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

In December 2007 I underwent a Damascene conversion and switched typefaces—for purposes of contracts and pretty much everything else—to Calibri, one of a new suite of Microsoft typefaces. Calibri has been designated the default typeface for body text in Office 2007, and the Word 2007 default font for body text is 11-point Calibri. (Click here for [...]

Once More, With Feeling: Make Your Right Margins Ragged and Use One Space After Punctuation

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

In chapter 15 of MSCD and in this May 2007 post (which has attracted 32 comments) I explain why using ragged right margins makes word-processing documents easier to read. It’s a no-brainer—you may think that full justification looks “professional,” but typography experts are unanimously in favor of ragged right for word-processing documents. (Books and other [...]

The Conspicuousness Requirement of Texas’s “Express Negligence” Rule

Monday, April 27th, 2009

I spent this morning in Toronto conducting a seminar at Rogers Communications, the Canadian communications company. David Miller, the general counsel of Rogers Communications, mentioned a requirement under Texas law that certain indemnification language be conspicuous. I’ve long been vaguely aware of that, so after the seminar I chased down further information. The gist of [...]

Does Any Law Require All Capitals?

Monday, February 4th, 2008

This post on use of all capitals in contracts—it’s from Legal Frontier, Andrew Mitton’s blog—reminded me of a question that I’ve asked myself occasionally. The Legal Frontier post is about how use of all capitals makes contract text harder to read. That wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who pays the slightest attention to [...]

What in a Contract Requires Typographic Emphasis?

Friday, December 28th, 2007

In a recent post I said that along with switching from Times New Roman I’d be abandoning underlining in favor of bold. But here’s a related question: I’ve previously used underlining to emphasize section headings, each defined term when it’s being defined, and references to exhibits and schedules. (See MSCD 12.9.) Should I use bold [...]

And I’m Getting Rid of Underlining, Too

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

In MSCD 12.9, I recommend using underlining to emphasize section headings, each defined term when it’s being defined, and references to exhibits and schedules. Underlining—or rather underscoring, to use typographer terminology—is a typewriter convention created to approximate common typographic effects that couldn’t be achieved with a typewriter. Typographers don’t like it. James Felici, The Complete [...]

It’s Time for a Typeface Change

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

[Update, 12/21/07 3:30PM EST: Previously I linked to Word 2003 versions of a document in Times New Roman and the same document in Calibri. I belatedly realized that that would only confuse matters, so I've now linked instead to PDFs.] Brace yourselves—I’m proposing a change of typeface. The Current Regime I suggested in this November [...]