Come help us deliver the dream of fonts anywhere, anytime on any device!

SiDaniels

Posting a job ad here. This is a great team, delivering interesting technology like our color font format. If you're a developer with a yearning to impact text send these guys a note.

Cheers, Si

http://www.microsoft-careers.com/job/Redmond-Senior-Software-Development-Engineer-Job-WA-98052/39796

Date: Feb 25, 2014

Location: Redmond, WA, US

Job Category: Software Engineering: Development
Location: Redmond, WA, US
Job ID: 867209-134719
Division: Operating Systems Engineering

Are you passionate about good typography and fonts? Do you notice the explosion of digital publication and the awe-inspiring types that make them unbelievably cool? The mass availability of increasingly high-pixel density display makes digital type looks more real than ever. We are on the cusp of digital typography renaissance where the availability of premium content and the vast collection of high-quality fonts knows no boundaries. Come help us deliver the dream of fonts anywhere, anytime on any device! Come join us -- Our team is looking for a strong developer with proven track record in the area of text and font processing to join the team who delivers the foundational text and font processing subsystem that carries Microsoft platforms and its software application ecosystem across various device categories -- from Internet Explorer, Office to XAML on the laptop, tablets, phones and XBOX. Responsibilities include taking part in the design and development of future enhancements of the core operating system's underlying text processing and font delivery system. Experience with text and font processing as well as working knowledge of inter-process and web-based communication are strong pluses. Strong industry (5 years minimum) expertise in C/C++ and experience shipping complex software product are required.



Nearest Major Market: Seattle
Nearest Secondary Market: Bellevue
Job Segments: Developer, Engineer, Software Engineer, Systems Engineer, Technology, Engineering

James Puckett

The page you linked to is broken.

SiDaniels

Thanks, try... http://bit.ly/1b3iH9k

attar

Will this strong developer or someone else make proper small caps in Microsoft Office applications possible? That would be a significant advancement for the general user, genuine small caps don't have to be reserved to those who own the Adobe Creative Suite.

I own the "Mathematical typesetting" booklet edited by Microsoft and it makes extensive use of the small caps contained in Cambria and Calibri. This couldn't have been made using the Office Suite and the fonts that ship with Windows. Microsoft brought the computer to everyone in 1995, will it bring small caps to the users without hacks? Microsoft should have the courage to drop or rename the fake small caps option that is proposed currently in Office applications. Surely Microsoft Typography can make this happen.

Even web browsers support OpenType small caps natively now. An office suite ought to at least be as good in terms of typesetting.

Cheers

Ray Larabie

That ad copy is unbelievably cool and awe-inspiring.

Jan Schmoeger

C/C++

I get it: plus plus.

Come join us -- Our team

Is that: minus minus?

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Adrien: ‘Surely Microsoft Typography can make this happen.’

TBH, I’m not so sure about that as you are. It reminds a bit me of this:

http://ilovetypography.com/2014/10/22/better-ui-for-better-typography-adobe-petition/

attar

> TBH, I’m not so sure about that as you are. It reminds a bit me of this:

That's one of the things that I've had on the back of my mind: why would designers reach out to Adobe and not to Microsoft? I'm pretty sure that there are far more people out there with Office than Creative Suite copies, yet no one seemed to worry about Microsoft applications with this ATypI move. [Quite incidentally these two guys are those who authored the OpenType specification.] Maybe you'd argue that the one who knows what a ligature is probably owns Adobe's software, but I still think that the casual Office suite is worth fighting for.

So why doesn't Microsoft offer small caps support? That's actually the first thing that comes to mind when I think of OpenType additions. They have numerals sets, dlig (!) but no small caps. IMO they just didn't want to drop the backwards-compat with their fake small caps option. Meanwhile, none of the free Office suites support OpenType features (Khaled Hosny offered to develop OpenType support for LibreOffice and/or Scribus but no one in their development team did support him). It seems Apple's latest Pages software completely dropped support for OpenType features (but that's just Apple being Apple, I guess). So Microsoft has a cutting-edge typography group, I mean these guys invented OpenType MATH but still release software without the basic features? If you are making a publications that uses mathematics, however short it is, you'll probably need things like small caps e.g. when you quote names. This has to be a political decision, and clearly, this cuts the ground from under type designer's feets. And if type designers want to reach a broader audience than graphic designers and book designers, application support is a first step.

Also, the time mandatory ligatures will be enabled by default can't come soon enough. Right now some of my teachers still serve me things like TNR with collisions around fi or small capitals. And from the time is gets enabled in a new release you'll have to wait until everyone upgrades to that version, same deal as with web browsers or operating systems APIs. So it better be done sooner than later.

George Thomas

...why would designers reach out to Adobe and not to Microsoft?

Perhaps because Adobe is the foremost publisher of desktop publishing software while Microsoft is a "me too" -- and a half-hearted one at that.

Just because Microsoft is the foremost publisher of office software shouldn't cause one to assume the person using that software knows what typography is or even cares.

Bottom line: your secretary is not a typographer nor do they want to be. That's why it is up to Adobe to lead the way.

attar

> Bottom line: your secretary is not a typographer nor do they want to be.

How can you tell? With the Personal Computer, pretty much everyone became its own publisher and there is much more of a lack of education in this domain than refusal to do things properly. Just look at how people reacted to Matthew Butterick's projects: Typography for Lawyers and the more recent Practical Typography.
In my opinion, designers need to not be elitists if they want everyone to care and improve in these domains.

I am myself not a type designer by trade, and as a scientific student it is things like the use of a powerful typesetting tool that is LaTeX for publications that made me question typography & type in general, things I would never have questioned or even thought about beforehand. Born in 1995, school teached me the basics of using a computer but never the basics of using type appropriately (if anything, teachers are not very often good typographers, but the same can be said of the general population). If we'd deliver the tools that would be a good advancement, but as designers we should always try to reach out more audience, and show everyone the value in what we do.

I see tons of scientific papers using scaled small caps for instance. But how could they tell it's fake when it's all they ever see?

Chris Lozos

Well, Si, thanks for posting the position here.  There should be some folks here who might be interested in working with you.  If I were 30 years younger and had a clue about c++, I might be.  Does the candidate have to become a Seahawks fan to apply? ;-)

Happy New Year, Si!

Craig Eliason

Do you guys realize this thread is almost a year old?

Dave Crossland

development of future enhancements of the core operating system's underlying text processing and font delivery system. Experience with text and font processing as well as working knowledge of inter-process and web-based communication are strong pluses

Does this portend a skyfonts/typekit+photoshop-integration like font service integrated into the windows app store?

SiDaniels

Happy new year everyone. It looks like this particular position was filled, but I know the OS Graphics team is still looking for help. Feel free to drop me a line directly if you're interested and I'll put you in touch with the team. Chris, we welcome developers regardless of NFL affiliation. :-)

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Adrien: ‘Born in 1995, school taught me the basics of using a computer […]’

Some people with dyslexia think that I’m as young as you are when they look at my birth year, but I had even to teach myself the basics of using a computer.

Peter Enneson

1599 Frank? No wonder you know so much about early type design!

John Hudson

Adrien,

I own the "Mathematical typesetting" booklet edited by Microsoft and it makes extensive use of the small caps contained in Cambria and Calibri. This couldn't have been made using the Office Suite and the fonts that ship with Windows.

FYI, the versions of the fonts used in the Mathematical Typesetting book are the same ones that ship with Windows and Office. The layout and basic typography for the book was done in InDesign, but all the mathematical examples had to be typeset in MS Word, printed to PDF, and then embedded in the InDesign file.

This is fairly typical of my workflows, whether typesetting books or making fonts: there never seems to be a single piece of software that does everything that I need to do.