I’ve belatedly updated my Windows System Colours Reference and post about Segoe UI to reflect changes in the Windows 8 Release Preview.
Tag: segoe
More on Segoe UI in Windows 8
Note: the following is based on the Windows 8 Release Preview (build 8400) and may not accurately reflect the final version of Windows 8. I’ll update this post if there are changes in future builds.
Updated: The fonts have been updated in the public beta (Windows Consumer Preview) and release candidate (Windows Release Preview) and I’ve changed the tables below to reflect this. I was also made aware of some additional information about changes to Segoe UI, including new stylistic sets and support for ligatures: you can read more at Subacme.
Further to my earlier post about Segoe UI Light in Windows 8, I’ve done some more research into the changes to the Segoe family of fonts. The Fonts class in the .NET Framework was helpful for retrieving information about the fonts.
First off, Segoe Print and Segoe Script and their bold variants have not been modified and are still labelled version 5.02 and 5.00, respectively. All existing variants of Segoe UI have been updated, and there is one new variant: Segoe UI Semilight. The latter is in fact used as the caption and small caption font in Windows 8 – Windows Vista and Windows 7 used Segoe UI (Regular). The Windows Phone 7 platform includes Segoe WP Semilight, and Segoe UI Semilight seems to be a superset of that font.
Apparently new in the Windows 8 Release Preview are three italic variants: Segoe UI Light Italic, Segoe UI Semibold Italic and Segoe UI Semilight Italic.
The following tables summarise the differences in glyph and character counts between the Windows 7 and Windows 8 versions of the Segoe UI font family:
Segoe UI Regular
| Windows 7 | Windows 8 Developer Preview | Windows 8 Consumer Preview | Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | 5.01 | 5.12 | 5.16 | 5.24 |
| Glyphs | 2899 | 4281 | 4490 | 4516 |
| Characters | 2658 | 3283 | 3423 | 3404 |
Segoe UI Bold
| Windows 7 | Windows 8 Developer Preview | Windows 8 Consumer Preview | Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | 5.01 | 5.12 | 5.15 | 5.24 |
| Glyphs | 2899 | 4290 | 4428 | 4442 |
| Characters | 2658 | 3283 | 3421 | 3401 |
Segoe UI Italic
| Windows 7 | Windows 8 Developer Preview | Windows 8 Consumer Preview | Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | 5.01 | 5.10 | 5.15 | 5.22 |
| Glyphs | 2381 | 2478 | 2597 | 3077 |
| Characters | 2130 | 2180 | 2299 | 2525 |
Segoe UI Bold Italic
| Windows 7 | Windows 8 Developer Preview | Windows 8 Consumer Preview | Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | 5.01 | 5.10 | 5.15 | 5.22 |
| Glyphs | 2381 | 2478 | 2597 | 3077 |
| Characters | 2130 | 2180 | 2299 | 2525 |
Segoe UI Light
| Windows 7 | Windows 8 Developer Preview | Windows 8 Consumer Preview | Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | 5.00 | 5.12 | 5.15 | 5.25 |
| Glyphs | 2380 | 4036 | 4178 | 4236 |
| Characters | 2131 | 3090 | 3230 | 3211 |
Segoe UI Light Italic
| Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | 5.22 |
| Glyphs | 3089 |
| Characters | 2525 |
Segoe UI Semibold
| Windows 7 | Windows 8 Developer Preview | Windows 8 Consumer Preview | Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | 5.00 | 5.12 | 5.16 | 5.24 |
| Glyphs | 2380 | 4089 | 4228 | 4242 |
| Characters | 2131 | 3144 | 3231 | 3211 |
Segoe UI Semibold Italic
| Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | 5.22 |
| Glyphs | 3089 |
| Characters | 2525 |
Segoe UI Semilight
| Windows 7 | Windows 8 Developer Preview | Windows 8 Consumer Preview | Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | N/A | 5.12 | 5.15 | 5.24 |
| Glyphs | N/A | 4034 | 4175 | 4189 |
| Characters | N/A | 3090 | 3230 | 3210 |
Segoe UI Semilight Italic
| Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | 5.23 |
| Glyphs | 3089 |
| Characters | 2525 |
Segoe UI Symbol
| Windows 7 | Windows 8 Developer Preview | Windows 8 Consumer Preview | Windows 8 Release Preview | |
| Version | 5.00 | 5.33 | 5.46 | 5.55 |
| Glyphs | 3090 | 5122 | 6785 | 6846 |
| Characters | 2864 | 4547 | 5092 | 5217 |
Supported Unicode Blocks
For further information about which Unicode blocks are supported by the Segoe family of fonts, you can download my extended analysis here:
segoe-analysis.7z
2,825 bytes; SHA-1: DFFA40934DB3305054C40AF3FD6E7224F5CF1EFB
Segoe UI Light Improvements in Windows 8
Windows 7 comes with Segoe UI Light version 5.00/0.90. Windows 8 (as of the Windows Consumer Preview) comes with version 5.15, which has been hinted at various sizes. This comes as a very welcome change, especially with Microsoft using Segoe UI Light all over the place in its latest webpage designs. I recommend grabbing the updated versions of Segoe UI from Windows 8 for your Windows 7 or Windows Vista machines.
As others have complained, the lack of hinting in version 5.00 is particularly noticeable with lowercase bs, ds, ps and qs, the ‘round parts’ of which don’t line up well with other characters. The heights of numerals are also variable at some sizes.
Have a look at the following screenshots for a better idea of the differences (click the images to see the full sizes).
Version 5.00
Version 5.15
