title: Default font for Windows Forms control with Latin script on a Chinese Windows
body: <p>I'm developing a Windows Forms control as a plugin for a larger application. The control isn't localized and always displays English text using the Windows Forms default font, i.e. <code>Control.DefaultFont</code>, which resolves to Microsoft Sans Serif on my German Windows 10 (or whatever is configured as the <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/297701/default-font-for-windows-forms-application">default system font</a>).</p>
  
  <p>Now, on a Chinese Windows 10 the default font may be something that's optimized for Chinese script and the English text that my control is rendering looks rather weird (like in <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7043904/microsoft-sans-serif-font-not-used-in-chinese-localized-windows">this question</a>). However, the standard dialog that is shown by <code>MessageBox.Show()</code> looks okay despite it almost exclusively showing Latin characters. I assume that's because it is using <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.drawing.systemfonts.messageboxfont" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>SystemFonts.MessageBoxFont</code></a> which resolves to Microsoft YaHei UI on that system.</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/RwBBT.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/RwBBT.png" alt="screenshot of a standard message box with a sensible font on a Chinese Windows"></a></p>
  
  <p>I guess I could explicitly use <code>SystemFonts.MessageBoxFont</code> or hard code another font like Microsoft Sans Serif in my control's constructor (but then there are the <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/input/font-technology#font-guidelines" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Microsoft font guidelines</a>). Is there any default font for Latin script in the .NET framework or Windows in general (<a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.drawing.fontfamily.genericsansserif" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>FontFamily.GenericSansSerif</code></a> maybe?) or at least something that tells me if a font can be used for Latin script?</p>