Microsoft Office gets Aptos as default font after 15 years: Heres all you need to know

Microsoft has announced a new default font for Microsoft 365. Aptos will replace Calibri, which was Microsoft’s default font for the last 15 years. Also Read: Microsoft outage 2.0? Several Microsoft 365 apps, Azure services become inaccessible

The need for the new font arose due to changes in technology as high-resolution displays need sharp and uniform fonts.  Also Read: Millions of Windows PCs face Blue Screen of Death error: What's the reason, what's the fix?

Mircosoft rolled out five new fonts- Bierstadt, Grandview, Seaford, Skeena, and Tenorite in 2021. Based on users’ feedback, Microsoft picked Bierstadt as the default font for Microsoft 365. Bierstadt is now known as Aptos.  Also Read: Microsoft outage: Users get blue screen of death on using Microsoft 365 apps

Aptos will now appear as the new default font across Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel for millions of users. The rollout has started and will be completed in the next few months. 

The new default font has been created by Steve Matteson who renamed it from Bierstadt to Aptos “after the unincorporated town Santa Cruz, California, whose widely ranging landscape and climate epitomizes the font’s versatility”. 

Here’s what new

Aptos is a sans serif, which is, inspired by the mid-20th-century Swiss typography. Sans serif fonts, also known as Grotesque or Gothic, are characterized by simple letterforms, even strokes, and high readability.

“Aptos, made of varying geometric shapes, is bold, well-defined, directive, and constrained. It articulates many different languages and tones. Stem ends are clean cut. Subtle circular squares within the letters’ contours allow higher legibility, especially at small sizes,” as per Si Daniels of Microsoft. 

Moreover, it has some subtle changes, such as a distinctive tail for the lowercase l, circular dots for the heads of i’s and j’s, a single-stroked 6, and two piled ellipticals for 8.

Other four default font contenders- Grandview, Seaford, Skeena, and Tenorite are also available and along with it, Aptos is also available under the Bierstadt name in the drop-down picker.

In addition to this, Calibri along with Times New Roman and Arial “is pre-pinned at the top of the new font menu (web only for now)”. Users will still get the option to choose their default font from settings. 

Moreover, Microsoft is also rolling out a newly designed font picker experience, along with new themes, colours, and backgrounds. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft is rolling out the ‘Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25905’ to the Insiders in the Canary Channel, which includes an AI Hub for the app store, and much more.

Explore a new curated section in the Microsoft Store where we will promote the best AI experiences built by the developer community and Microsoft,” the company said in a blog post.

According to the tech giant, AI Hub is a space where the company will educate customers on how to start and expand their AI journey, inspiring them to use AI in everyday ways to boost productivity, spark creativity and more.