Question about Courier font - Writers Forum

haven · 06-28-2006, 06:18 PM

I'm submitting a short story to a magazine, and the guidelines say to use 12pt Courier font. However, I only have Courier New on my computer. Are they basically the same thing? It costs $29 to buy/install the Courier font, and I just spent about 2 hours looking unsuccessfully for a free download. Is it acceptable to use Courier New (or another similar Courier font) instead of the regular Courier?

journyman161 · 06-28-2006, 06:35 PM

Courier new is the same thing - for that matter so is Arial - anyone who could possibly pick the difference is far too anal to have a life & certainly wouldn't be functional enough to work for a magazine.

Edit: If I recall correctly the different names came about because there were several different Font houses who put out fonts for printers/computers & they each had their own names for them. Times, Times New & Times New Roman are all pretty much alike as well.

If you have WinXP, go to Control Panel & Dbl-click Fonts & then View & click List by Similarity. You'll find there are limited types of normal fonts but multiple variations of them.

Note: You can speed up your PC considerably by removing a lot of the similar ones & only keeping the basics along with any fancy ones you like to use.

teflon · 06-28-2006, 06:45 PM

I think that Courier might be a monotype font, which means that it wastes more space wherein each letter has occupies a standard width. Modern, new fonts are proportional, where narrow letters (i,l) occupy proportionately less space than wide letters (w,a) I don't know why a publishing hosue would operate with that font. Old computers, maybe. Look for people who have Win3.0, 95, 97. They can always copy, zip and send you the old Courier by e-mail.

mwd · 06-28-2006, 06:56 PM

First, Courier New is the same as Courier. That's what you should use, haven.

Second, Courier and Arial are not the same thing, journyman. Arial is sans serif, whereas Courier is serif. Courier and Times are both serif, which make them more similar than Courier and Arial -- still, though, Courier is the accepted font for submitting manuscripts, precisely because of the following point...

Third, teflon, the reason they like Courier is exactly due to the fact that it is monospaced. It makes it easier for most editors to pick out errors, and ends up with lots of white space on the page. Your page count will increase, but it will become easier to read, edit, and typeset ... which is what the editors are concerned with.

Basically, always follow the submission guidelines for any zine. If in doubt, or if their guidelines are a bit vague, take the tried and true route of double spaced 12 point Courier (New). Don't submit in Arial, or any other proportional font. Even if it's an electronic submission, which means the editor can easily reformat your text, it still makes you look like a newbie (Believe me, from personal experience, DO NOT submit in Arial, especially if it's single spaced. My first ever submission, I did that. I learned not too pretty quickly.)

Mike C · 06-28-2006, 06:58 PM

Courier the same as arial?

Are you BLIND? Courier is a fixed width serif font, arial is a sans serif proportional font.

Publishers like courier because they can more easily judge how much space/ how many pages to allocate to your story.

And typographically speaking serif fonts are reckoned to be more easy on the eye for large tracts of text, which is why you never see a novel printed in arial.

mammamaia · 06-28-2006, 06:59 PM

i ditto mwd... heartily and in toto!

teflon · 06-28-2006, 07:01 PM

http://www.iconlandia.it/ has the font.

journyman161 · 06-28-2006, 07:36 PM

Yep, you're right & I should have looked before saying stuff off the top of my head. Apologies haven. The arial comment was part of the edit & I should have just let it stay as it was.

Imagination! · 06-28-2006, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teflon

http://www.iconlandia.it/ has the font.

You might want to tag that with NSFW (not safe for work), as the site is laden with porn ads, porn popups, etc.

Time to cleanse my young, previously untouched mind.

haven · 06-28-2006, 08:32 PM

Okay, I'll just use Courier New then. Thank you all so so so much for your help

gatoatigrado · 06-28-2006, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Imagination!

You might want to tag that with NSFW (not safe for work), as the site is laden with porn ads, porn popups, etc.

ty...about to click the link then saw this. the internet is fos.