Courier is a monospace slab serif font that resembles the output from a typewriter. The typeface was created by Howard "Bud" Kettler in 1955. The design of the original Courier New typeface was commissioned in the 1950s by IBM for use in typewriters, but they did not secure legal exclusivity to the typeface and it soon became a standard font used throughout the typewriter industry. As a monospaced font, it has recently found renewed use in the electronic world in situations where columns of characters must be consistently aligned. It has also become an industry standard for all screenplays to be written in 12 pt Courier or a close variant, and it is widely used by computer programmers to write source code. As the widest font available in most word processors, Courier New is popular with students seeking to expand term papers to meet length requirements.

12 point Courier New was also the US State Department's standard typeface until January 2004, when it was replaced with 14 point Times New Roman. Reasons for the change included the desire for a more "modern" and "legible" font.

Kettler was once quoted about how the name was chosen. The font was nearly released with the name "Messenger." After giving it some thought, Kettler said, "A letter can be just an ordinary messenger, or it can be the courier, which radiates dignity, prestige, and stability."

In ASCII Art

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Courier is commonly used in ASCII art because it is a monospace font (which makes it easy to use) and is available almost universally. "Solid-style" ASCII art uses the darkness/lightness of each character to portray an object, which can be quantified in pixels (here in pt. 12):

a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z
21	25	18	25	24	19	28	24	14	15	25	16	30	21	20	27	27	18	21	17	19	17	25	20	21	21

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
25	29	21	26	29	25	27	31	18	19	28	20	36	24	20	25	28	30	28	24	27	22	30	26	23	24

`	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	-	=	~	!	@	#	$	%	^	&	*	(	)	_	+
2	16	19	20	23	23	23	16	26	23	24	6	12	9	9	36	30	26	20	7	24	21	13	13	9	13

[	]	\	;	'	,	.	/	{	}		:	"	<	>	?
17	17	8	11	4	7	4	8	16	16	13	8	8	9	9	13

In Programming

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Courier New is used extensively in programming; on Microsoft Windows it is the default monospace font for a variety of applications. Below is a sample of code written using Courier New:

Microsoft, however, is intending to dethrone Courier New as the the default monospaced font in the next version of windows, Windows Vista, and is including its new Consolas font as the primary monospaced font.

See also

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• Core fonts for the Web

External links

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• US bans time-honoured typeface
• Courier New font information (Microsoft typography)
• Downloadable version of Courier New (Core fonts for the Web)
• Designer of Courier: the Bud Kettler Page

Monospace typefaces | Typefaces | 1955 introductions | Courier (Schriftart) | Courier (betűtípus) | Courier | Courier (czcionka) | Courier