Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 come preloaded with a new set of cleartype fonts – Constantia, Corbel, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas. However, these fonts are not available for download at the Microsoft site. I viewed these beautiful fonts in a friend’s computer with Windows Vista, and wanted to know how to get them…
View Microsoft ClearType Fonts
I visited the Microsoft ClearType Font Collection, where sample layouts for each font (Constantia, Corbel, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas) are provided as XPS (XML Paper Specification) files. I downloaded the font .xps files from there and they opened up in Internet Explorer 7. You can download the Microsoft XPS Viewer to view these .xps files also.
Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 Fonts
I searched around various font resources and forums. There are several places where I found these fonts for sale at variable prices (beware of bad sellers), in some forums these fonts were available for download as .zip files (beware of virues and malware!) also. I wanted a more official and reliable way to download these fonts…
I checked the Microsoft Typography site where you can find fonts supplied with Microsoft products. Most buy fonts links from the official site lead you to the Ascender site for Microsoft Fonts. The keynote there is “Microsoft selected Ascender because of our years of font development and licensing expertise, and our ability to maintain the integrity of their type designs and font software quality.” That’s official enough for me.
There I found the Microsoft ClearType Font Collection featured in Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 and available for license to individuals, graphic designers and businesses. The collection consists of 25 fonts: six new typeface families (Constantia, Corbel, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas), each with regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles, and a new picture/symbol font (Cariadings). Individual fonts are priced at $35 and font families are $120 – each includes a license to use the fonts on up to five computers. The Complete Microsoft ClearType Font Collection (25 Fonts) is available for $299.
Best deal – If you really want to spend money, they buy Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium upgrade or get a Microsoft Office Standard 2007 Upgrade – both of which will have these fonts integrated and you get the latest version for your Microsoft software too.
Download Free Vista Fonts
Various forums mention that some free Microsoft software enable you to view Microsoft Office 2007 documents, and they have these cleartype fonts incorporated in them. Try if it works for you…
Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack – for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. Lets you open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. (27.5 MB)
Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer 2007 – lets you view full-featured presentations created in PowerPoint 97 and later versions. (25.8 MB)