My col­league and Face­book friend, Bill Hill, died sud­denly last week. Bill was an unsung hero, a cru­sader in the quest to improve the read­abil­ity of text and books on screen. He invented ClearType for Microsoft Win­dows (shown here demon­strat­ing ClearType to Al Gore).

Dur­ing his decade or so at Microsoft, Bill cham­pi­oned some of Microsoft’s most impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to read­abil­ity, includ­ing bet­ter on-screen typog­ra­phy (fonts like Geor­gia, Tre­buchet, Ver­dana and Tahoma). That said, he lamented that typo­graphic improve­ments from Microsoft often lagged Apple’s con­tri­bu­tions by a decade or more…

He was on a life­long cru­sade — sadly under-appre­ci­ated at Microsoft — to improve read­abil­ity and access to do-it-your­self pub­lish­ing. He was a pio­neer in e‑book tech­nol­ogy, more than a decade before Ama­zon finally achieved a suc­cess­ful mass mar­ket offer­ing with the Kin­dle. He described some of his pio­neer­ing work in his blog, The Future of Read­ing.

Live Life Large

Bill was an eccen­tric and a con­trar­ian, a cre­ative thinker, a man of fiercely held con­vic­tions. In dis­course as in food, Bill pre­ferred things hot and spicy.

Bill com­posed and played music, inspired by causes, self-pub­lish­ing a num­ber of record­ings. You can find links to some of them on his Face­book page.

After early retire­ment from Microsoft, he lived for a year or so on Kauai where he indulged his pas­sion for surf­ing — even wear­ing a head­cam at times to share the dan­gers and delights with his Face­book friends.

He loved his fam­ily, he loved nature and the great out­doors.

His pass­ing is a reminder to enjoy life, breath by breath. And to spend time with the peo­ple you love.

Good­bye, Bill. We’ll miss you and your fire!