Basic Sans and Basic Roman are not metrically compatible with Times New Roman (TNR) and Arial

[sergiuvolda]

Context: https://forum.softmaker.com/viewtopic.php?t=27275

While Basic Roman and Basic Sans are very similar to Times New Roman and Arial in terms of look and design, unfortunately, they are not truly metrically compatible.

If you open

softmaker font metric compatibility check.tmdx

(4.3 MiB) Downloaded 57 times

in SoftMaker Office, you will see the difference.

I think this is important for those who use SoftMaker Office on Mac OS or Linux and don't have TNR or Arial installed.

[lgsl]

I do not think Basic Sans and Basic Roman are meant to be metrically compatible with Times New Roman and Arial. Most likely they are closer to Sans and Sans Serif than anything else.

[sergiuvolda]

Nevertheless, it looks and is designed very similarly, yet it is not metric compatible. I'm afraid people will use it assuming it can substitute for Times New Roman or Arial, only to find that their document becomes a mess.

Font is also one of the factors that determine document compatibility.