Microsoft’s beautiful “Core Fonts” used to be available for (free) download at http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/default.htm.
Unfortunately, these have now been removed—see http://typographi.com/2002_08_13.php#000428.
Fortunately, the licence agreement under which they were originally distributed makes it possible to make these fonts available for download here.The *.hqx files are for Macintoshes, the *.exe files are for Windows machines. (For some reason there’s no Macintosh version of Webdings.)
395537 2002-08-14 08:32 Arial.sit.hqx 100972 2002-08-14 08:32 ArialBlack.sit.hqx 183641 2002-08-14 08:32 ComicSans.sit.hqx 471505 2002-08-14 08:32 CourierNew.sit.hqx 355568 2002-08-14 08:32 Georgia.sit.hqx 109145 2002-08-14 08:32 Impact.sit.hqx 454060 2002-08-14 08:32 TimesNew.sit.hqx 322956 2002-08-14 08:32 Trebuchet.sit.hqx 301035 2002-08-14 08:32 Verdana.sit.hqx 198383 2002-08-14 08:30 andale32.exe 91523 2002-08-14 08:32 andalemono.sit.hqx 554208 2002-08-14 08:30 arial32.exe 168175 2002-08-14 08:30 arialb32.exe 246007 2002-08-14 08:30 comic32.exe 646368 2002-08-14 08:31 courie32.exe 392439 2002-08-14 08:31 georgi32.exe 173287 2002-08-14 08:31 impact32.exe 661728 2002-08-14 08:31 times32.exe 357200 2002-08-14 08:31 trebuc32.exe 351991 2002-08-14 08:31 verdan32.exe 185071 2002-08-14 08:31 webdin32.exe