Which font is the best for an Excel spreadsheet?

[Extrocomp]

I'm planning on making a list of all Star Trek characters (canon and non-canon), which I will eventually extend to characters from other fictional universes that are connected to Star Trek by crossovers. Don't ask me why, I've always liked making lists.

But I'm terribly indecisive and I don't know which font to choose.

Calibri is the default option for Excel, which appeals to my desire for simplicity. It's not a particularly tall font, so there's a decent amount of space between each entry on the list. But on the other hand, it's a sans-serif font, so the lower-case L's look almost the same as uppercase I's.

Segoe UI is almost exactly the same as Calibri except that the letter g is single-storey, rather than double-storey. The apostrophes are also a bit smaller.

Times New Roman (or something close to it) is the font most Star Trek novels use. But despite looking good in a novel, it looks terrible on an Excel spreadsheet. I don't know why.

Other serif fonts like Cambria, Constantia and Georgia give the text a dignified look without looking dry and boring like Times New Roman.

Arial Narrow will be good to save space on very long character names like Haroun ibn Ahmad ibn Suleiman Abdurrahman al-Rashid. But names with lots of i's and apostrophes like Ki'ki're'ti'ke become hard to read. Another down side is that lower-case L's look exactly the same as uppercase I's in this font.

Comic Sans is easy to read no matter what is written due to the spacing between letters and the simple appearance. The silliness of it will serve as a reminder not to take the my list too seriously, which can be a problem due to my OCD. But on the other hand, it's the most hated font in the world and it takes up a lot of space.

Califonia FB and Lucida Fax make the apostrophes look greyed-out and bold, respectively, so they're no good.

Trebuchet is like a bold version of Calibri with smaller apostrophes, which might be a good thing.


Any advice guys?

 

[Non Sync]

Don't get too crazy on fonts, especially if the list is being distributed to others as they may not have access to more obscure fonts.

If I'm doing something where I really need to be able to discern between "1" "l" (lowercase "L") or "I" (uppercase i), I'll use an OCR font.

 

[DEWLine]

Are you planning to present the finished(?) work as if it were an in-universe document, and if so, which time period?

 

[Avro Arrow]

I'm not at all a fan of Microsoft, but credit where it is due: I really like Calibri. It is a nice, basic sans serif that looks good either on-screen or printed. I know there's a fair bit of hate for it out there, and yes, you can argue it lacks character, but it gets the job done for what it needs to do. You probably wouldn't use it as part of a professional graphic design, but I don't see anything wrong with using it in your own spreadsheets. And it comes included with Office, so it's not going to cost you anything extra, either.

As you mentioned, though, the upper-I and lower-L can be a problem if you're mixing case inside a word. The lower-L is a bit taller, but that's hard to differentiate unless you see them both together. And note that my understanding is that MS will actually be replacing Calibri as the default font shortly, although I can't imagine that they'd actually remove it entirely.

The examples below should all be included with either Windows or Office, if I am remembering correctly.

You may want to check out either Tahoma or Verdana. They are both sans serif, except that they both add small serifs to the upper-I, in order to differentiate it from the lower-L. At a similar point size, they both have a larger footprint than Calibri, but 10-point Tahoma is very close to 11-point Calibri, and 10-point Verdana is just a bit wider. I've used both on websites before, as they both read well on screens.

You could also go with something like Bahnschrift (Microsoft's version of DIN 1451) or Trebuchet, both of which are sans serif, but get around the upper-I / lower-L issue by adding a small tail to the lower-L:

Bahnschrift actually comes with a number of different weights in Windows, so you could also use Bahnschrift Condensed if the standard weights were too wide.

I know these are all Microsoft fonts, but that way they should be readily available if you have Windows and/or Office. Personally, I still prefer Calibri out of the five listed, but for what I use it for, the upper-I / lower-L issue doesn't really come up! (And as you may be able to tell, I am heavily biased to sans serif fonts for this type of thing! )

I don't know if this helps you or not, but...

 

[Velocity]

I use Tahoma, myself.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I go with Arial most of the time.

Don't get too crazy on fonts, especially if the list is being distributed to others as they may not have access to more obscure fonts.

If I'm doing something where I really need to be able to discern between "1" "l" (lowercase "L") or "I" (uppercase i), I'll use an OCR font.

Is an Excel sheet the same as text on the web? Like, if you don't have a particular font installed, you won't see it in the spreadsheet?

I've been in chatrooms that have handwriting available, but before I got Lucida installed, I was seeing one of the other more basic fonts instead. This was OK, since handwriting is a little hard to read.

 

[Extrocomp]

Don't get too crazy on fonts, especially if the list is being distributed to others as they may not have access to more obscure fonts.

I'm only considering the fonts that come with Excel, not any downloaded fonts.

Are you planning to present the finished(?) work as if it were an in-universe document, and if so, which time period?

I'm not sure what you mean by in-universe document. The first column will be character names, the second column will be species/gender and the third column will be the universe or universes that the character has appeared in.

I'm not at all a fan of Microsoft, but credit where it is due: I really like Calibri. It is a nice, basic sans serif that looks good either on-screen or printed. I know there's a fair bit of hate for it out there, and yes, you can argue it lacks character, but it gets the job done for what it needs to do. You probably wouldn't use it as part of a professional graphic design, but I don't see anything wrong with using it in your own spreadsheets. And it comes included with Office, so it's not going to cost you anything extra, either.

I know these are all Microsoft fonts, but that way they should be readily available if you have Windows and/or Office. Personally, I still prefer Calibri out of the five listed, but for what I use it for, the upper-I / lower-L issue doesn't really come up! (And as you may be able to tell, I am heavily biased to sans serif fonts for this type of thing! )

I don't know if this helps you or not, but...

Thank you for your advice. One of my concerns is how the apostrophes are going to look. In Calibri, the apostrophe starts above the top of the capital letter, which looks a bit weird to me, but I may get used to it.

 

[Extrocomp]

I've chosen to use Open Sans. It's not one of the fonts that comes with Excel, but I wasn't able to find something that satisfied me from what was available. I didn't like the look of the apostrophe in Calibri and I didn't like how squashed Segoe UI looks when you reduce it to size 10.

Open Sans has Segoe-style apostrophes, but a more Calibri-style look at size 10. I'm hoping Open Sans isn't too obscure, so if I do decide to distribute the list when it's finished, people will be able to download the font and read it.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Open Sans is distributed for free under the Apache license. Anyone who would like it can download the family from here.

 

[publiusr]

Bahnschrift looks a lot like the font used in the AMT Enterprise decals. That might have its uses for your project.

I like Bookman Old Style myself…as I’m a fuddy-duddy. Not for Star Trek though.

 

[Kor]

...
I'm not sure what you mean by in-universe document. ...

If it was intended to look like something that would actually appear in the show, with characters looking at it.

Kor