I wrote the article on Lucida Hybrid almost two years ago, as a remedy to the quirks of Lucida Grande’s less-than-perfect cousins. Since then, it has received quite a number of hits; enough to make an impact on a few stylesheets.
Also since then, things have changed drastically (within the context of the article): Lucida Sans‘ normal weight now displays correctly. Huh.
At first, I thought: “surely, I wasn’t the only one seeing Lucida Sans’ hinting problems whenever I wrote this article…” A few minutes on Google gave me affirmation: others (1, 2) were, at one point or another, experiencing the same problem. Thank Dwayna for screenshots: they would prove I’m not (entirely) crazy.
So, what happened?
A Web Designer Forum thread mentioned that some versions of Windows XP may have shipped with a poorly-hinted version of Lucida Sans. My supplemental guess is that the fix was either pushed via Windows Update, or included in Service Pack 3.
I set out to replicate the problem and come up with a more definitive explanation. I journeyed into the depths of the Interwebs and hunted down all the versions of Lucida Sans I could get my hands on. I tested them, one at a time, to no avail. I then thought of testing different installations of XP to get a more accurate recount, but by that time, I realized I was spending too much time and effort pinpointing the cause of a problem that’s already been addressed.
What of Lucida Hybrid now?
In retrospect, Lucida Hybrid was a fix that got me (and a few others) through some tough times with (an unknown version of) Lucida Sans. And like some fixes, it was pushed into obsolescence and insignificance by a more logical solution (in this case, a properly-hinted update). I guess you could still put ‘Hybrid to use, if only to account for that unknown percentage of computers still with the sub-par ‘Sans. But without a good statistic to rely on, I would have a hard time justifying the trouble of implementing it.
So what is your CSS preference now? A CSS example would be great!
I wonder if this is a safer option. Lucida Sans in my opinion doesn’t look as good as Tahoma on a Windows machine.
Font Family: “lucida grande”,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif
Font Size: 11px
@Jon: It all boils down to the type of look you’re going for (and to a lesser extent, your personal preferences). I use Lucida Sans as it is the closest match to Grande. Something like:
font-family: "Lucida Sans", "Lucida Grande", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;As I see, the option seems needed to be considered. However partially agreed with your idea.