confused about courier font

Well, you can get into all sorts of discussions about Courier fonts (I once read quite a research report someone had written about the various Courier fonts). It's doesn't really matter whether you use Courier or Courier New (included in Word), or whether it looks exactly like the one on Wiki.

The Courier font I like best and use is Dark Courier; I think it looks better when it's printed out. You have to download it however. It's just a little darker and doesn't look as "washed out" as Courier New.

The font you linked to on Wikipedia is Courier, the image you posted is definitely not. What OS are you using? If you have Windows you should have Courier New, which, while really too light as alleycat says, will still work as a Courier font.

If you don't have Windows you can still get Courier New, which is distributed freely as a core web font (the MS core fonts have been on SourceForge for years), or you can use something like Dark Courier, which is freeware from HP. My favorite is Final Draft Courier, but I'm not sure if that's freely available or not.

I thought most agents now wanted TNR, although I've heard that screen-plays should be submitted in Courier.

If there are so many varieties of Courier, and most agents only take electronic submissions, how do you know the version of Courier you use is the same one that's on their computers?

What you posted isn't Courier. I would download one you like off the net. With that said, I've noticed this trend:

- Agents younger than 40 tend to prefer Times New Roman.

- Agents older than 40 seem to get mad if you don't use Courier.

- Agents younger than 30 seem to HATE Courier.

My rule of thumb is to use Courier for older agents and TNR for younger. I've never run into a snafu.