Powerpoint fonts for mac and pc install#

This experience highlights the importance of always checking what your slides look like on a different machine before presenting–something I failed to do and paid the price. Not only was I embarrassed, but the slide failed to communicate effectively to my audience. I noticed it because all of the labels on one slide were a jumble of text (see below). After joking about being the PowerPoint Ninja at the beginning of my presentation, I noticed to my horror that the inserted slides used the corporate font. At one industry event, I inserted a couple of slides from another co-worker into my slide deck. I do use them from time to time, but I’ve learned to be very careful with them. In general, I’ve avoided using custom fonts because of the problems they create. However, they can trip up employees when they present on external computers or share slides with another company.

The corporate fonts are unique, clean, and professional. My company, Adobe, has its own set of corporate fonts, which is both good and bad. In my current role as an analytics evangelist, I’m not always presenting from my own computer. While it can be an occasional problem for internal computers, it can be a serious problem when presenting on external computers or sharing PowerPoint files outside of your company. No, Arial and Helvetica are not the same. PCs don’t have Helvetica by default like Macs. If you have both PCs and Macs at your workplace, it’s also common to run into font compatibility problems because PCs and Macs don’t share all the same fonts (e.g., PCs don’t have the Helvetica font by default). When it comes to setting up a new computer or re-imaging an existing computer (i.e., restoring a computer to its default state typically after a bad crash or virus), fonts aren’t going to be the highest priority for IT.

Powerpoint fonts for mac and pc install#

However, I’ve still seen problems with custom corporate fonts when your IT team fails to install these fonts on all new computers or re-imaged computers. In most cases, a non-standard or custom corporate font isn’t going to cause problems internally because theoreticallyeveryone at your company should have the corporate font installed. In other words, your nicely designed slides can turn into an unintelligible, sloppy-looking mess simply because the computer you’re presenting on doesn’t have the right font. As a result, all of your copy and labels may end up being misaligned or text-wrap in places you didn’t anticipate. Why? When people go to view your file on their computers and they don’t have the same font, PowerPoint will substitute another font which may not be the exact same size or style as your original font (12 pt in one font can be smaller or larger in another font). You may hate Microsoft’s default fonts (e.g., Arial), but if you’re considering using another font you’ll want to make sure it’s a commonly installed font. When picking fonts for presentations or corporate PowerPoint templates, you need to be careful which fonts you choose.