Arial

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{{Infobox font | image = Image:Arial font.png | style = Transitional sans-serif | date = 1982 | creator = Robin Nicholas
Patricia Saunders | foundry = Monotype | sample = Image:Arial sample.png |}}

Arial is a font packaged with several Microsoft Corporation applications. It was designed by Monotype as a cheaper substitute for Linotype's popular Helvetica. Helvetica was one of a number of typefaces that were mandated for printers that support Adobe's PostScript language. A user specifying Helvetica could be sure the printer would be able to output it. Microsoft didn't want to include Helvetica with Windows, and licensed Arial as a cost-cutting measure. While its inclusion with Windows has made it one of the most common typefaces in the world, Arial is controversial in typography circles. It is probably better known than Helvetica, however, it is widely regarded by typographers as a cheapened imitation, with none of the historic significance of the Swiss original.

Though nearly identical to Helvetica in both proportion and weight, the design of Arial is in fact a variation of Monotype's Grotesque series, and was designed with computer use in mind. Subtle changes and variations have been made to both the letterforms and the spacing between characters, in order to make it more readable on screen and at various resolutions.

Arial has shipped with Microsoft Windows since the introduction of TrueType technology in Windows 3.1. TrueType itself was meant as a replacement for Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. Microsoft also tried to supplant PostScript itself with its own version of a printer description language, TrueImage.

Microsoft Office also ships with Arial Unicode MS, a version of the typeface that includes many international characters from the Unicode standard. This version of the typeface is the most complete font in wide distribution, although even more complete fonts (like Bitstream Cyberbit or Code2000) exist.

The latest PostScript standard now includes Arial alongside Helvetica as a standard typeface that PostScript level 3 devices should support.

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