Calibri is the default font of Excel 2007. When a file that uses Calibri is loaded in the Mac version, the replacement is a font that's much higher, so the cells sometimes look bad (the worst effect is with bold, 10 pt, vertical aligment 'top'). If Arial is used as a replacement, these documents look much better. Download Calibri Light font for PC/Mac for free, take a test-drive and see the entire character set. Moreover, you can embed it to your website with @font-face support.
If you open Microsoft formatted documents on your Mac like I do then you have probably run across the annoying message saying the Calibri or Cambria font is missing.
For years I have ignored this as an annoyance, but today I decided to do something about it. Turns out there is a very easy fix!
Richard Taylor of RMTWeb became fed up like me and put together a package of fonts to restore Calibri and Cambria fonts on the Mac.
Getting the fonts running is trivial:
- Download Richard’s font package from http://www.rmtweb.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Calibri-and-Cambria-Fonts.zip
- Open the zip
- (Here is where I differ from his notes)
- Open the Font Book app
- Select all the fonts from the download and drag them to Font Book
- Click the select all checkbox and the install button
- Celebrate!
That’s it.
Old English Fonts For Mac
Really.
You will no longer get that annoying message about missing fonts!
Thanks to Richard for providing this resource! His original instructions can be found at https://www.rmtweb.co.uk/calibri-and-cambria-fonts-for-mac
Bonus: Segoe UI Font
After posting the original fonts I ran across an issue with Segoe UI fonts missing. Microsoft provides a download for them at Segoe UI and Fabric MDL2 external icon font. The install instructions are the same as above!
Photo by Patrick Ward on Unsplash
Calibri Font is one of the ugliest fonts ever invented by mankind, I hold it up there with other design fails such the infamous Comic Sans MS. Beyond that, Microsoft decided to make it the default font for all its Microsoft Office Suite, so we’ve been forced to see it almost anywhere.
Using Calibri for a presentation speaks almost too much about you, especially if you call yourself a designer of any sort. I can read that you didn’t bother to find a replacement font for your document, or even worse, that you thought it looked good. We actually made sure that the font would never be an option on our presentation software.
But fear not, here are some amazing alternatives so you never have to use Calibri again. Prepare to awe your audience!
Using Calibri for a presentation speaks almost too much about you, especially if you call yourself a designer of any sort.
Best Fonts For Mac
Related Read: Fonts to Avoid Default Fonts
Open Sans
This has become one of the most widespread used fonts of the decade and Google owns a little bit of this credit to the startup community. It’s a great and simple Sans-serif font that adapts as its being integrated on websites all over the world. I’m sure you have recognised it.
The trend these days seems to be associated to lightweight fonts, so using that Open Sans-300 is also a good way to go if you want to look trendy.
Download Calibri Fonts For Mac
Open Sans is the font used on the Scala layout on Slidebean.
TRY SLIDEBEAN
Alégre Sans
Alégre Sans is a beautiful, sans-serif capitalised font that we find particularly attractive for headers. In a way, it’s a beautiful an graceful version of the well-known Impact. It is of course, not recommended for body text on your slide, as an all-caps font can come across as aggressive to your audience if you are not careful.
Alégre Sans is also available on some Slidebean Premium templates.
Poiret One
A round and elegant lightweight sans-serif font with a Retro and Art Deco style. I find it particularly interesting if you want your presentation to stand out without being over the top. Using some vintage and/or rounded shapes on your slides will of course be a plus.
Poiret One was designed by Denis Masharov and is available for download as part of the Google Fonts package. Still, it’s not a very common choice so I don’t believe anyone will recognise it.
Helvetica Neue
Of course you might complain that the world is a bit tired of Helvetica, and I might have to agree; this is the font used by Apple for most of the iOS 7 interface, by the US Government in most of their forms and the NYC Subway, if you hadn’t noticed. Nevertheless, Helvetica is still worldwide accepted as one of the most beautiful fonts ever designed.
It represents a slight but notable improvement from Helvetica and includes a bunch of new variants, including the lovely Helvetica Neue UltraLight, Helvetica Neue Thin and Helvetica Neue Medium.
Although Helvetica is a paid font owned by Linotype, it’s available for free on every Apple Computer and that is why it’s made it to the list. Sadly, you can still spot some Mac-users using Calibri.
Raleway
Another Google Font, this one actually represents a great free alternative to Helvetica Ultralight. It was designed originally as a lightweight typeface and later evolved to add new, bolder variants.
I’d recommend sticking somewhere between Thin (100) and Normal (400), as the 700+ thinkness versions don’t look that good after all. Using lightweight fonts on presentations is great if you want to add large titles or short amounts of text (which is what you always aim for anyways).
Raleway is our font of choice for the Slidebean layout ‘Polygon’, available on the Free version.
Enjoy your presentation making. Please don’t ever let me see you using Calibri again.
Calibri Light Font For Mac
2020 update: Granted. Calibri is one of the recommended fonts for people with dyslexia. I stand by my point. However, you can consider this and other recommended fonts if you know your audience can have a better reading experience with it.