The stoush between Helvetica loyalists and lovers of Arial is well documented in typography circles—Helvetica is often regarded as the darling of the sans serif fonts, representing a clean, modern aesthetic and cosmopolitan attitude, while Arial is seen as its second-rate counterpart. 

To everyday users, the long history behind the feud may not be common knowledge. Yet if you were to pause a moment and look at the basic selection of fonts available in Word, you would most likely notice that Microsoft features only Arial and Macs Helvetica.