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Academic Appeal: The 11 Best Fonts for Academic Papers

• BY Bogdan Sandu
• 26 February 2024

Imagine settling into the rhythm of crafting your academic magnum opus—the words flow, ideas chime, yet it all hinges on how your prose meets the reader’s eye. You’re well aware that  the best fonts for academic papers  don’t just whisper to the intellect; they shout to the discerning critic in each evaluator. Here unfolds a narrative, not merely of  typography  but your academic saga’s silent ambassador.

In forging this guide, I’ve honed focus on one pivotal, often underestimated player in the academic arena:  font selection .

Navigate through this roadmap and emerge with a treasure trove of  legible typefaces  and format tips that ensure your paper stands hallmark to clarity and professionalism.

Absorb insights—from the revered  Times New Roman  to the understated elegance of  Arial —paired with indispensable  formatting nuggets  that transcend mere compliance with  university guidelines .

Dive deep, and by article’s end, unlock a dossier of sage advice, setting your documents a class apart in the scrutinous world of academic scrutiny. Here’s to  typography  serving not just as a vessel but as your ally in the scholarly discourse.

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What is the standard/recommended font to use in papers?

I looked around but did not find that anyone has asked this before, but what are the fonts that are standard/recommended while writing academic reports/papers?

• publications

• 19 No need to search for the perfect font. You just download the latex/word template that the journal / conference provides and you stick to it. –  Alexandros Commented Aug 7, 2014 at 10:12
• 3 In my case there isn't a template, that is the problem. –  Man Commented Aug 7, 2014 at 10:12
• 1 @O.R.Mapper yes very true, although I assume if the OP was looking for the standard font of every language in the world for academic publishing, we could close it as "too broad" –  user-2147482637 Commented Aug 7, 2014 at 15:35
• 10 People stick with the Computer Modern default in LaTeX so much that I once had someone tell me a paper where I intentionally chose a different serif font "looked unprofessional." –  Matt Reece Commented Aug 7, 2014 at 17:32
• 3 Please do not be "that person" who has the only paper in the journal or proceedings with a different font from the others. –  Max Commented Aug 8, 2014 at 8:42

4 Answers 4

If there's no template, then the choice is yours. However, you should make sure to pick a font that's easy to read. The usual standards in academia tend to be the Times, Helvetica/Arial, and Computer Modern families. This doesn't restrict you from using fonts like Book Antiqua, Myriad Pro, Goudy Old Style, or Garamond, but they're definitely not standard.

• 9 As to Helvetica/Arial: I think conventional wisdom is that serif fonts are preferred for large bodies of text, while sans serif should be reserved for short chunks like labels, headings, etc. I've certainly never seen a published paper set entirely in Helvetica. Then again, in my field everyone uses LaTeX, so unless you make a special effort, everything comes out in Computer Modern. –  Nate Eldredge Commented Aug 7, 2014 at 15:52
• @NateEldredge: You are correct that serif fonts are easier to handle in large doses, but Helvetica is the "default" font for most "official" documents and reports throughout most of Europe. And this extends to preprints when not done in LaTeX. –  aeismail Commented Aug 7, 2014 at 15:56
• 14 Eurghhhhhhhhhhh. –  Nate Eldredge Commented Aug 7, 2014 at 16:14
• @NateEldredge: This is not undisputed. @ aeismail: It’s rather Arial due that popular operating system (which does not make this any better; not because of serif vs. sans-serif, but because I do not want to see that font anymore to the extent that I tweaked my browser to auto-replace any resembling fonts). –  Wrzlprmft ♦ Commented Aug 8, 2014 at 8:35
• @Wrzlprmft: True, it is normally Arial that is specified; fortunately the differences are small enough that I use Helvetica and no one complains. (And actually I'm starting to see more references to Helvetica nowadays.) –  aeismail Commented Aug 8, 2014 at 12:00

For an academic paper each publisher journal have their standards. These do not affect or are affected by the manuscripts sent in to the journal. Some journals specify fonts, commonly standard Times Roman, for their manuscripts. If the journal specifies something, follow that specification. Otherwise use a font that is easy to read. There is no need to use anything but a standard font for whatever typesetting/word processor system.

There isn't any.

Focus on the content, write using your favorite writing software's default font, and let the journal's typesetting staff worry about the looks of the published version.

For the subset of journals that do not take care of typesetting, first make sure they are legitimate, then use the template they provide.

If no template is provided discuss with your supervisor and colleagues whether the journal is really worth your time, if it is then use your favorite software's default font.

As others have mentioned, the standard font varies, but is usually a serif font such as Times New Roman, although sans serif fonts such as Arial and Helvetica seem to be gaining traction as well. Their is major disagreement over which is easier to read--serif or sans serif fonts, with no clear consensus on the outcome. For example, see this paper .

Font size is typically twelve point. Follow the guidelines on this one, and make sure to keep your font consistent. Nothing is more likely to get you minus points than some obvious monkeying with the font size, whether to lengthen your manuscript (most commonly seen in undergrad papers) or to fit your text into the page limit (the rest of us!).

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5 fonts that add credibility and professionalism to scientific research

by ikumikayama | Apr 29, 2013 | Uncategorized | 14 comments

Choosing the right fonts can affect how your scientific research is received.

Note: This is part 2 of a 2-part blog series about choices in fonts. You can read part 1 here .

You are dressed in your best. You edited the manuscript with a fine-tooth comb…but are your figures and images wearing flip-flops?

Last time we talked about fonts that suck professionalism out of your scientific research . In this article, we’ll talk about fonts that actually add credibility and professionalism to your research. Dress your research in a custom-tailored suit by just using these fonts!

My friend and colleague, Cassio Lynm described how a good figure should be like a billboard found in many highways around the country. Anyone who sees the billboard will understand what they are advertising in a split second. If someone is confused or gets the wrong idea, the image is not very successful.

Similarly, the best professional fonts should be one that’s easy to read with very little “bells and whistles”. When writing prose of informational value such as scientific research, a reader should pay attention to what the text is describing, not how the text looks.  A good professional font should be like air–we don’t really even pay attention to it most of the time.

Some of the fonts I’ll share with you today are considered “boring” and “overused” by some. These fonts are everywhere because they are champions of legibility and simplicity.  Make your work professional and trustworthy by using a time-tested font.

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1. Arial- “All-Around Champion with IBM Roots”

According to fonts.com , Arial is one of the most used typefaces of the last 30 years. Its electronic origins go back to 1982 for IBM laser-xerographic printers by designers Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders. When it came out, it was supposed to compete with Helvetica, which was one of the core fonts in Apple Computers in the mid 1980’s.

Arial letters have more round shapes and the edges of letters do not end in a horizontal line. Instead, the edges are at an angle.

Arial is an easy-to-read font in small and large blocks of text. Nature requests that the figure text be in Arial or Helvetica. It’s especially nice for figure labels and legends. When using Arial as figure legends, keep the font size small ~8 points for best results.

2. Helvetica- “All-Around Champion with Apple Roots”

Helvetica is the most heavily-used font. Helvetica was originally designed by a Swiss designer named Max Miedinger in 1957. The font was designed to be an easy-to-read font. The name “Helvetica” comes from “Helvetia” – Latin name for Switzerland. Actually, the font received a facelift in 1983-the newer version is called, you guessed it, Neue Helvetica.

Helvetica even has its own movie . I haven’t seen it yet, but please comment in the section below if you have.

Besides its Hollywood (Indie) status, Helvetica is a font that looks great on both print and on screen.  Nature , Science , and Cell request that their figure labels be in Helvetica. (If you need assistance setting up figures, I’m here to help). It looks great small as in figure labels, and it looks pretty good in large formats as posters. I lost count of how many figures I labeled using Helvetica, since that’s what one of the publishers used for their books.

3. Baskerville- “Tends to have positive influence on readers”

Baskerville’s history goes all the way back to 1757 when John Baskerville designed a typeface that works well in print and easy to read.  Mr. Baskerville preferred his letters simple and refined. He was also a writing master, so he had some ornamental letters like the upper case Q.

There was an  informal study  (not official, but some experiments here and there) that showed using Baskerville font increased trustworthiness of the text compared to other fonts. In the same study, Comic Sans had the most negative influence on the readers.

Baskerville is a serif font, which means that there are “tails” at the edge of the letters. Generally, serif fonts are better suited for print. This font works best when used in long blocks of text. Try to keep this font between 8 and 14pts for best results. This font looks dignified, so use this for your important professional occasions-award ceremonies, recognitions, etc.

4. Caslon- “When in doubt, use Caslon”

Caslon is another font with a long history. William Cason I designed the typeface back in the early 1700’s. This font is considered as the first original typeface from England. This font was very popular in colonial America, and it was used for many historical documents including the US Declaration of Independence.

Caslon is a serif font (with tails), and is best used in blocks of text. Like Baskerville, try to keep this font between 8 and 14 points for best results. Using this in a report or an application would be a good places.

5. Garamond – “Second best font after Helvetica”

This font’s history also goes way back. The font was designed by Claude Garamond (or Jean Jannon), who was commissioned to make a typeface for King Francis I of France (1515-47) to be used in series of books. The modern, electric version was revived in 1989 by Robert Slimbach.

Because there are different sources available for Garamond, there are numbers of different variations of the font. Adobe Garamond is the most popular and widely-available version today.

Garamond is still used extensively by French publishers. They also insist that Garamond be printed in size 9.  Some of the most famous publications in France are in Garamond such as Histoire de l’édition français.  The publishers prefer this font “for its beauty, its richness and its legibility” combined with “an uncluttered graphic style that underscores the rigour of essays and analysis providing a radical critique of contemporary society”.

Garamond is a great font to be used in long proses such as textbooks, dissertations and theses. Keeping it at 9 point is optional. In fact, my master’s thesis was in Garamond.

So that’s the 5 fonts that add credibility and professionalism to your scientific research. Did you find your favorite fonts here? Do you have other favorites? Please share your thoughts in the comment section. Also, please feel free to send this article along to those who might benefit from this short article.

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Now that you know about great scientific fonts, learn more about: PowerPoint Tips for the Scientist

Sources and Further reading:

Arial vs Helvetica – fonts.com

Research on font trustworthiness: Baskerville vs. Comic Sans

Caslon typeface

History of Garamond

Cell Press Figure Guide

Nature -Guide to preparing final artwork

Science Magazine: Preparing your manuscript

14 Comments

I’d rather like to know which font was used to write that article – it’s simple and readable, better than all presented above.

And the font being used for that article is Helvetica, which is one of the fonts mentioned above 😀

Hi Ewa! Great point. The font used is called “Open Sans” by Steve Matteson. For my blog, I made the font color dark grey to make it easier on the eyes, and also made them slightly bigger than average for easier reading. Hope this helps!

Hollo there, i liked the article but none of this fonts looks like the one used in the papers i read, (Journals of the American Chemical Society), do you know which one they use?

Hi There! Thank you for the note! ACS suggests Arial and Helvetica for their journal figures, so that’s what I introduced in this article–for the text, they might very well have their own custom font they use for their publications. I’ll dig into this a little deeper–thank you again!

I’m sorry, but this article is full of misinformation. Part 1 is a reiteration of articles that have been around for years. Absolutely nothing new there, and honestly, is there anyone even considering the typefaces you name there for scientific articles? Is it conceivable that anyone would use Curlz for his essay?

But my real concern goes to the second part. Arial and Helvetica are absolutely not scientific typefaces. The notion that ACS suggests these typefaces doesn’t make them suitable for scientific works. I think you ought to do research as to WHY these typefaces came recommended. Helvetica has history, as it won out of contemporaries like Univers as Helvetica was very heavily marketed. As a side note, Helvetica is actually based on the Akzidenz Grotesk model. Arial was designed to have the same metrics as Helvetica so it could be used on the same printers without having to pay a license fee to use Helvetica. Arial is more legible while Helvetica is more neutral and clear, but neither is particularly great.

So I would say Helvetica and Arial haven’t been chosen because they’re perfect. They’ve been chosen because they’re popular, and Arial is on every Windows computer, so people don’t have to purchase any fonts. I would say neither Arial and Helvetica are known to be particularly good to read. I suspect typefaces like Proxima Nova and Avenir will fair better. To be clear, I don’t think Arial or Helvetica are bad choices for labels and such, but to suggest them as top 5 typefaces, that’s very clearly misinformation.

“When using Arial as figure legends, keep the font size small ~8 points for best results.” For best results? Not entirely. It’s probably a good estimate, but in actuality the pt size should depend on the layout. I would recommend always making a test print to see if the text looks good in print, if that’s what it is intended for. Sometimes 0.2pts more or less could make the difference.

“Helvetica is the most heavily-used font.” I don’t think so. First off, Helvetica is not a font. It’s a typeface. Helvetica Regular would be a font. Helvetica is the most heavily-used typeface in graphic design, and likely the most heavily-used sans typeface. It’s not the most heavily-used typeface. At least, I would be very surprised if it was. I suspect Times New Roman is the most heavily-used.

“The font was designed to be an easy-to-read font.” No, Helvetica was designed to steal the popularity of Akzidenz Grotesk away.

Also, follow this link to see some of the problems of Helvetica at small sizes, and what professionals in the field have to say about it: http://spiekermann.com/en/helvetica-sucks/

“Actually, the font received a facelift in 1983-the newer version is called, you guessed it, Neue Helvetica.” Who would guess that the prefix for the new Helvetica would be German though? Small detail… Anyway, if you like Helvetica but want a more professional typeface (because really, Max Miedinger was not a type designer and as far as I’m concerned that shows), I can recommend Neue Haas Grotesk (a typeface that is true to the original Helvetica, but improved) or Neue Haas Unica (a more fresh looking Helvetica that deviates from the original).

“Helvetica even has its own movie. I haven’t seen it yet, but please comment in the section below if you have.” I have seen it a few times now. It’s quite a pleasure to watch, but there’s a lot of propaganda involved as well. You have the likes of Massimo Vignelli drooling over how great Helvetica is. The man was a pretty great graphic designer (although insisting on always using Helvetica has little to do with graphic design, as one ought to select the perfect typeface for the job, not use one typeface for every job), but he had no insight in type design. On the other hand, you have Erik Spiekermann formulate perfectly what Helvetica stands for. I would say for a type designer the Helvetica documentary is quite pleasant to watch. For the layman I’m afraid the documentary amounts to propaganda. It gives the layman the feeling this is one of the best typefaces out there and it’s simply not, by far.

“Besides its Hollywood (Indie) status, Helvetica is a font that looks great on both print and on screen.” Absolutely not! On Windows computers, websites set in Helvetica tend to look horrendous. The problem is that Helvetica is not well hinted, and so rendering problems occur. Helvetica was obviously not designed for monitors. Neue Helvetica doesn’t have the rendering problem to the same extent I believe, but relatively few people have Neue Helvetica, so it wouldn’t be wise to use that on your website, unless you embed the fonts. For websites I highly recommend using Arial rather than Helvetica.

“Baskerville’s history goes all the way back to 1757 when John Baskerville designed a typeface that works well in print and easy to read.” Easy to read? Not particularly, though it’s not bad either. Baskerville is a transitional typeface, meaning the weight modulation is vertical and the contrast is high. This is the tradition of the Baroque, but it’s not the most pleasant to read. However, Baskerville does look quite academic. For typefaces that are more pleasant to read, I would look at the Garalde style. Garamond and Caslon belong to that classification. They have a diagonal weight modulation, which naturally leads the eyes to the next letters. Typefaces with vertical weight modulation and high contrast tend to feature a fence effect, which disturbs the reading experience. To see this effect well, look at Didone typefaces like Didot and Bodoni.

“This font works best when used in long blocks of text. Try to keep this font between 8 and 14pts for best results.” 14pt seems quite large. Try 9–12pt. This goes for any serif typeface to be used for body text that is intended for print (for the web try 10–14pt, also depending on which device it’s intended for). But again, it will depend on the layout, and always make test prints to make sure it’s pleasant to read.

“Garamond is a great font to be used in long proses such as textbooks, dissertations and theses. Keeping it at 9 point is optional. In fact, my master’s thesis was in Garamond.” I distinctly remember years ago I noticed my Harry Potter book was set in Garamond. Both Garamond and Caslon are still used extensively for books.

However, Garamond may be a bit much for scientific documents. It’s quite classical and it has a low x-height, which these days is not preferable. Caslon is a bit less expressive and has a taller x-height. I would say Caslon is probably better for scientific articles.

One group of typefaces that certainly seems to be missing here is Century. Typefaces like Century Roman and Century Schoolbook. They belong to the Clarendon classification and are reminiscent of typefaces like Baskerville. These typefaces have been popular since the late 19th century and are still used extensively in academic literature. But I suppose you should also make a consideration of whether your article should be about the most comfortable typefaces to read, or the best suitable for scientific work, because they most certainly don’t amount to the same thing, yet you seem to be equating the two in this article.

Hi Martin! Thank you so much for your in-depth note! I have to look over and digest all your excellent points. Would you be open to expanding your writing and be a guest author or send me a link to your website/blog so the readers can have more information about what types to use for their work?

THE quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog!!!!!

Leelawadee is a bit underrated. It is easy on the eyes, and simple. It could use a bit of a TimesNewRoman-punch to it, though.

Where can I download Helvetica from? I couldn’t find it anywhere

Seriously? I don’t know what this smug guy does with typography, in which he seems to be well versed, but if he were to take up writing he would need to work on his grammar.

I’m not an expert on fonts, but I’m currently using Helvetica for headlines and other Sans text in my thesis and DejaVu for the main text. Feels pretty scientific to me 🙂

I enjoyed the historical aspect of this article. Thanks! PS. I see you use a sans serif font.

How i download these font types?

Dr. Mark Womack

What Font Should I Use?

The Modern Language Association (MLA) provides explicit, specific recommendations for the margins and spacing of academic papers. (See: Document Format .) But their advice on font selection is less precise: “Always choose an easily readable typeface (e.g. Times New Roman) in which the regular style contrasts clearly with the italic, and set it to a standard size (e.g. 12 point)” ( MLA Handbook , 7th ed., §4.2).

So which fonts are “easily readable” and have “clearly” contrasting italics? And what exactly is a “standard” size?

For academic papers, an “easily readable typeface” means a serif font, and a “standard” type size is between 10 and 12 point.

Use A Serif Font

Serifs are the tiny strokes at the end of a letter’s main strokes. Serif fonts have these extra strokes; sans serif fonts do not. ( Sans is French for “without.”) Serif fonts also vary the thickness of the letter strokes more than sans serifs, which have more uniform lines.

Books, newspapers, and magazines typically set their main text in a serif font because they make paragraphs and long stretches of text easier to read. Sans serifs (Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Gill Sans, Verdana, and so on) work well for single lines of text, like headings or titles, but they rarely make a good choice for body text.

Moreover, most sans serifs don’t have a true italic style. Their “italics” are really just “obliques,” where the letters slant slightly to the right but keep the same shape and spacing. Most serifs, on the other hand, do have a true italic style, with distinctive letter forms and more compact spacing.

Since they’re more readable for long passages and have sharper contrast in their italics, you should always use a serif font for the text of an academic paper.

Use A Readable Type Size

The standard unit for measuring type size is the point . A point is 1 / 72 of an inch, roughly one pixel on a computer screen. The point size of a font tells you the size of the “em square” in which your computer displays each letter of the typeface. How tall or wide any given letter is depends on how the type designer drew it within the em square, thus a font’s height and width can vary greatly depending on the design of the typeface. That’s why if you set two fonts at the same point size, one usually looks bigger than the other.

Compare the following paragraphs, both set at 12 point but in different fonts:

For body text in academic papers, type sizes below 10 point are usually too small to read easily, while type sizes above 12 point tend to look oversized and bulky. So keep the text of your paper between 10 and 12 point .

Some teachers may require you to set your whole text at 12 point. Yet virtually every book, magazine, or newspaper ever printed for visually unimpaired grown-ups sets its body type smaller than 12 point. Newspapers use even smaller type sizes. The New York Times , for example, sets its body text in a perfectly legible 8.7 point font. So with proper spacing and margins, type sizes of 11 or 10 point can be quite comfortable to read.

Font Recommendations

I usually ask my students to use Century Schoolbook or Palatino for their papers. If your teacher requires you to submit your papers in a particular font, do so. (Unless they require you to use Arial , in which case drop the class.)

One thing to consider when choosing a font is how you submit your essay. When you submit a hard copy or a PDF, your reader will see the text in whatever typeface you use. Most electronic submission formats, on the other hand, can only use the fonts available on the reader’s computer. So if you submit the paper electronically, be sure to use a font your instructor has.

What follows is a list of some widely available, highly legible serif fonts well-suited for academic papers. I’ve divided them into four categories: Microsoft Word Fonts, Mac OS Fonts, Google Fonts, and Universal Fonts.

Microsoft Word Fonts

Microsoft Word comes with lots of fonts of varying quality. If your teacher asks you to submit your paper in Word format, you can safely assume they have Word and all the fonts that go with it.

Morris Fuller Benton designed Century Schoolbook in 1923 for elementary-school textbooks, so it’s a highly readable font. It’s one of the best fonts available with Microsoft Word. Because it’s so legible, U. S. Supreme Court Rule 33.1.b madates that all legal documents submitted to the Court be set in Century Schoolbook or a similar Century-style font.

Hermann Zapf designed Palatino in 1948 for titles and headings, but its elegant proportions make it a good font for body text. Named for Renaissance calligrapher Giambattista Palatino, this font has the beauty, harmony, and grace of fine handwriting. Palatino Linotype is the name of the font included with Microsoft Word; Mac OS includes a version of the same typeface called simply Palatino.

Microsoft Word includes several other fonts that can work well for academic essays: Bell MT , Californian FB , Calisto MT , Cambria , Garamond , and Goudy Old Style .

Mac OS Fonts

Apple has a well-deserved reputation for design excellence which extends to its font library. But you can’t count on any of these Mac OS fonts being on a computer that runs Windows.

Finding his inspiration in the typography of Pierre Simon Fournier, Matthew Carter designed Charter in 1987 to look good even on crappy mid-80s fax machines and printers. Its ability to hold up even in low resolution makes Charter work superbly well on screen. Bitstream released Charter under an open license, so you can add it to your font arsenal for free. You can download Charter here .

In 1991 Apple commissioned Jonathan Hoefler to design a font that could show off the Mac’s ability to handle complex typography. The result was Hoefler Text , included with every Mac since then. The bold weight of Hoefler Text on the Mac is excessively heavy, but otherwise it’s a remarkable font: compact without being cramped, formal without being stuffy, and distinctive without being obtrusive. If you have a Mac, start using it.

Other Mac OS fonts you might consider are Baskerville and Palatino .

Google Fonts

When you submit a paper using Google Docs, you can access Google’s vast library of free fonts knowing that anyone who opens it in Google Docs will have those same fonts. Unfortunately, most of those free fonts are worth exactly what you paid for them, so choose wisely.

IBM Plex is a super-family of typefaces designed by Mike Abbink and the Bold Monday type foundry for — you guessed it — IBM. Plex serif is a solid, legible font that borrows features from Janson and Bodoni in its design. Plex is, not surprisingly, a thoroughly corporate font that aims for and achieves a bland neutrality suitable for most research papers.

John Baskerville originally designed this typeface in the 1850s, employing new techniques to make sharper contrasts between thin and thick strokes in the letter forms. The crisp, elegant design has inspired dozens of subsequent versions. Libre Baskerville is based on the American Type Founder’s 1941 version, modified to make it better for on-screen reading.

Unfortunately. Google Fonts has few really good serif fonts. Some others you might consider are Crimson Pro and Spectral .

Universal Fonts

Anyone you send your document to will have these fonts because they’re built in to both Windows and Mac OS.

Matthew Carter designed Georgia in 1993 for maximum legibility on computer screens. Georgia looks very nice on web sites, but in print it can look a bit clunky, especially when set at 12 point. Like Times New Roman, it’s on every computer and is quite easy to read. The name “Georgia” comes from a tabloid headline: “Alien Heads Found in Georgia.”

Times New Roman is, for better or worse, the standard font for academic manuscripts. Many teachers require it because it’s a solid, legible, and universally available font. Stanley Morison designed it in 1931 for The Times newspaper of London, so it’s a very efficient font and legible even at very small sizes. Times New Roman is always a safe choice. But unless your instructor requires it, you should probably use something a bit less overworked.

12 Best Fonts for Academic Papers in Microsoft Word

Good academic papers deserve good academic fonts. You might not have thought too much about which font you use before, but they play a big part in whether people will take your paper seriously or not. This article will explore the best fonts for academic papers.

Best Fonts for Academic Papers in Microsoft Word

The best fonts for academic papers are Times New Roman, Baskerville Old Face, and Georgia. There are plenty of good options, but you’ll mainly want to stick to serif fonts. They look much neater and more professional while showing that the reader can trust what you say.

Times New Roman

Times New Roman is the most famous font on Microsoft Word. It should come as no surprise that it’s a good pick when writing academic papers. It’s got everything you could possibly need when it comes to professionalism and readability.

Times New Roman is the best font to use in most situations. If you’re looking for a more formal font, you’ll find that Times New Roman ranks very highly on the list, regardless of what else is required.

It’s a fairly small font, which looks more appealing for an academic paper. A common pitfall that most people fall for is they try to use a font that’s too large, which can make their paper look less trustworthy and more informal. Neither of those traits is good for academics.

Baskerville Old Face

Baskerville Old Face is a great font to use in an academic paper. There have been studies in the past about different fonts and how they engage readers. It’s believed that Baskerville is one of the most reliable fonts, and the writer tends to be more “truthful” when using it.

Whether you buy into studies like this or not isn’t important. What is important is that Baskerville Old Face is a fantastic choice for most academic papers. It looks really good (like a more concise Times New Roman), and it’s very popular.

Baskerville is a fairly popular choice for published novels, so you might already be familiar with the font style. If you like the way it looks in some of the novels or publications you’ve read, you’ll find that it converts very well to your academic papers.

Georgia ranks very highly when looking for a formal font that will work well in an academic paper. It’s slightly larger than Times New Roman, but a lot of people say that this helps it to become a more “readable” font.

When writing academic papers, it’s wise not to overwhelm your reader with information. The more condensed the font is, the harder it can be to make sense of what you’re writing. With Georgia, this isn’t an issue.

Georgia might be one of the larger fonts listed here, but it makes for an easy read. Plenty of readers will be happy to read through an entire paper written in Georgia, but they might be a bit against reading one in something smaller.

Garamond is another decent option that can work well for academics. Garamond is the smallest font we have included on the list, which can allow you to get a lot of information into a very small space without overwhelming a reader too much.

While it’s not always ideal for including lots of information, Garamond does it really well. It’s readable and professional, allowing your readers to make sense of even the most concise explanations you might include.

It’s also quite a popular choice for many writers. You’ll find that it ranks quite highly simply because of how popular it’s become among a lot of writers on Word.

Cambria is a solid font choice that a lot of people like to use. It’s another default font (though it’s mainly reserved for sub-headings in most Word formats). It runs true to the font size, making it a fairly decent choice if you’re looking for something compact.

The serif style of this font makes it easy to read. It’s nearly indistinguishable from some of the other more popular serif fonts like Times New Roman and Georgia, which is why it is such a popular choice.

However, since it looks so similar, it can make it difficult for people to recognize the font or to figure out which font you’re using. While this isn’t the end of the world, it certainly won’t help you to create a unique feel for your paper either.

Book Antiqua

Book Antiqua is another suitable serif font. It’s not as popular as some of the others, but it looks really good as far as formal fonts go. People like it because it offers a slightly more authentic feel and looks like it could be used in a published novel or academic study.

It’s a standard-sized font, and it’s quite easy to read. A lot of people enjoy using it because it can offer a lot of character to their writing. You might not think that a font has that much power, but you’d be surprised once you try and use Book Antiqua a bit more.

Bookman Old Style

Bookman Old Style is another good font that can look like something out of a published paper. What makes this one special is its size. It’s quite a large font with a decent amount of width to each letter (without going too overboard with the letter spacing).

This font is quite popular for people looking to make their academic papers stand out. It’s not the same style as most of the other serif fonts, allowing your paper to bring a little bit extra that some other people might miss out on.

We encourage you to try this one in multiple different situations. It can work both formally and informally, depending on what you’re looking to get out of it.

Palatino Linotype

Palatino Linotype is a good font for many occasions. You’ll often find it used in academic papers because of the interesting style that comes with it. It looks like a classical font, which takes inspiration from some of the older styles of writing that came before computers.

If you want your academic paper to come across as a bit more traditional or formal, you’ll love this font.

Palatino Linotype offers a great deal of character without changing too much of the original formula that makes fonts like Times New Roman and Georgia so special.

Lucida Bright

Lucida Bright is a great font that is very large compared to most. It works well in academic papers, but you’ve got to make sure you know when to use it. If your paper is particularly word-heavy, it might not be wise to use a font that makes each word much larger.

For example, if you have a page limit on your paper, it might be wise to use a smaller font. Lucida Bright will definitely carry you far over that page limit before you come close to the words you might need to use to explain something.

Nevertheless, it’s still a very attractive font that looks really good in most academic papers. If you’re looking for something that’s stylish and readable, Lucida Bright is a good option.

Calibri is a sans serif font, and it’s the first of its kind on the list. We have only included serif fonts because they tend to be more readable and professional. However, Calibri can work really well if you’re looking for a slightly more approachable feel with your font.

Calibri is like the Times New Roman of the sans serif fonts. It is very popular, and most Microsoft Word versions come with it preloaded as the default font for most written pieces.

That’s what makes it such a valuable choice. You can use it in almost any situation (informal and formal) to a great degree.

Arial is another popular sans serif font that you will be able to use in your academic writing. You don’t always have to use the more formal serif fonts, and Arial is a great example of what can be achieved when you’re a little less formal with your presentation.

Arial is much larger than Calibri when the same font size is used. This makes it a lot more visually appealing, though you have to make sure you don’t overdo it with the number of pages it uses.

Before Calibri replaced it, Arial was also the default sans serif font on Microsoft Word. This has allowed it to be a fairly popular choice for many users, and it remains one of the most popular ones today.

Century Gothic

Century Gothic is the final font we want to cover. It’s a sans serif font that can work really well if you’re looking for a slightly larger font. It’s larger than Arial, making it an easy-to-read font that a lot of people like to utilize.

The only issue you might come across is that the size of it can make it seem much more informal. You should be careful with how you use this font, as it could take away from the professionalism or reliability of your academic paper.

You may also like: 12 Best Fonts for Notes in Microsoft Word 12 Best Victorian Fonts in Microsoft Word 12 Best Chalkboard Fonts for Microsoft Word

Martin holds a Master’s degree in Finance and International Business. He has six years of experience in professional communication with clients, executives, and colleagues. Furthermore, he has teaching experience from Aarhus University. Martin has been featured as an expert in communication and teaching on Forbes and Shopify. Read more about Martin here .

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25 Best Fonts For Reports and Professional Documents

The art of crafting a compelling report & professional documents goes beyond just the content; the choice of font plays a crucial role in enhancing readability, conveying professionalism, and setting the tone of the document. Whether the report is intended for print or on-screen reading, the right font can significantly impact the reader’s experience and comprehension.

This guide provides a selection of recommended fonts for reports, considering factors such as readability, professionalism, and the context in which the report will be read. From classic serif fonts like Times New Roman and Garamond to modern sans serif fonts like Arial and Calibri, these fonts have been chosen for their proven effectiveness in professional and academic settings.

In this post, we shall focus on the 25 best fonts that you can use on professional documents and reports.

We shall also see how these fonts enhance readability and aesthetic appeal while keeping readers hooked on the documents’ contents.

Quick word : These fonts include Arial, Calibri, Garamond, Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, and Cambria, among others.

Read on to find out more.

Also Read : Most Common Fonts & When To Use Them ?

Best Fonts for Reports & Professional Documents

1. times new roman.

Times New Roman is a serif typeface perfect for professional documents and reports. It is based on an old serif font called Plantin and is one of the most popular fonts used in Microsoft Word.

In 1929, The Times hired Stanley Morison to create a new text font. Together with Victor Lardent, Morison created the Times New Roman font, which was unveiled in 1932 for the British newspaper, Times, with great fanfare.

Times New Roman is a top choice for professional documentation for its legibility, narrow spacing, and formal appearance. You can use it for writing business proposals, resumes, academic papers, and business reports.

Another popular font for your professional documents and reports is Arial. Arial is a sans-serif typeface based on the Neo-grotesque style. It comes in many styles, including regular, italic, bold, bold italic, medium italic, and extra bold, just to mention a few.

Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders created the Arial font in 1982 with angled terminals as its identity. The Arial font is one of the few approved fonts for use on court documents.

It is also an excellent choice for magazines, newspapers, advertising, and promotion.

Arial is a top choice font as it is clean, visually appealing, easy to read, and versatile. Its range of weights and styles makes it ideal for various projects. Whether you use it in the body text or headline, Arial remains professional.

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Lucas de Groot designed Calibri, a sans-serif font between 2002 and 2004. The font was released to the public in 2007 with Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. Upon its release, Arial replaced Times New Roman as a default Word typeface.

De Groot gave the Calibri font a subtly rounded design that gives it a warm and soft character. No wonder it easily replaced the Arial font as a default PowerPoint, Outlook, and Excel typeface.

Calibri is a modern and humanistic font featuring real italics, small caps, and various numeral sets. While the font works well in both professional and informal settings, it might not suit all projects.

4. Garamond

Garamond is another exciting font fit for professional documents and reports. Its unique styles include Garamond regular, Garamond medium, Garamond medium oblique, Garamond bold, and Garamond Demi, among others.

The Garamond font was designed by URW Type Foundry , a German-based company with a rich history of type design and engineering.

Initially designed for print media, it turned out to be an excellent choice for body text and book printing.

The modern Garamond is preferred for text-heavy printed materials like academic papers and books for its timeless elegance and readability.

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Verdana is another humanistic typeface created by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporatio n . It is your go-to font for professional documents and reports, thanks to its readability.

Verdana was created specifically for computer screens. It is an excellent choice, especially for large blocks of text. Some of this font’s standout features include wider spacing, large x-heights, wider typeface, and bigger counters.

Its pixel patterns are carefully crafted to ensure readers can tell the difference between the most confused letters in their small sizes. It might not be an exciting font, but it’s definitely a functional one.

6. Helvetica

Helvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by a Swiss designer called Max Miedinger. The font instantly became an icon in Swiss designs and could be spotted on numerous advertising posters and billboards across the USA and Europe.

Helvetica’s success and appeal can be attributed to its modern appearance, versatility, and understated elegance.

The font is available in three different versions: micro for small screens, display for larger formats, and text for normal text.

Each size comes in 48 different weights. Its character shapes are better spaced and more legible even on small electronic devices.

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Georgia is another serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter in 1993 . Matthew’s aim was to create a typeface that would appear elegant but be legible even in small print or on low-resolution screens.

The Georgia font has multiple traditional features that make it elegant and flawless. You can use it on multiple platforms, as it’s highly legible and works well with print and display projects.

You can use the Georgia font on your professional website, books, reports, etc. Its notable styles include Georgia Regular, Georgia Italic, Georgia Bold, and Georgia Bold Italic.

Another font that can work well for your professional documents and reports is Cambria. Cambria is a transitional font that was commissioned by Microsoft and distributed by Windows and Office.

Jelle Bosma, a Dutch typeface designer, created the Cambria font in 2004. He designed the font for on-screen reading but still the font looks good even when printed in small sizes.

Its spacing is even and proportional, which is why it’s accepted by many professionals, who term it simple and professional, making it perfectly acceptable for essay body texts.

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9. Open Sans

If you are interested in Google fonts that are perfect for professional documentation and reports, consider Open Sans. The humanistic font was designed by Steve Matson, Type Director for Ascender Corp, in 2011 .

Open Sans is based on an earlier version called Droid Sans, created specifically for Android mobile devices. The current version of the Open Sans font has 897 characters, including Latin CE, ISO Latin 1, and the Cyrillic character set.

The font was also created with upright anxiety and a friendly look. Open Sans was optimized for print and mobile interfaces. But what makes it more ideal for professional documentation and reporting is its outstanding legibility characteristics.

Roboto is a Google font with a dual nature. It features a mechanical skeleton and largely geometric forms, as well as friendly, open curves. The font was developed in 2011 by Google as the system font for its Android mobile operating system.

Roboto is a unique neo-grotesque font that is distinctively modern. Each letter has a unique hand-drawn ink pattern, although it was made with outer grey lines.

While other grotesque fonts twist their letter forms to achieve a more rigid rhythm, Roboto does not compromise. All its letters seamlessly settle in their natural width to give a more natural reading rhythm.

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Lato is another sans-serif font that was created during the summer of 2010 by a Warsaw-based typeface designer called Lukasz Dziedzic.

Lato was considered a corporate font made for a big client. However, the client decided to opt for a different style. Hence, the font was released to the public.

At this point, Lukasz was keen to balance some initial conflicting priorities and make a transparent typeface when used in body texts.

He also ensured that the font would still display its original traits, even in bigger sizes. As mentioned earlier, the font was created for corporate use; therefore, it will look good on your resume or your business report.

12. Montserrat

Montserrat is another exciting Google font designed by an Argentine graphic designer named Julieta Ulanovsky in 2011 .

Julieta was inspired by the old signs and posters in her traditional neighborhood, so she created a typeface that rescued the beauty of urban typography.

Montserrat consists of two sister families, namely Subryada and Alternates. Each family has unique characters, making the font flexible for various uses. You might have known Montserrat for its use on logos, posters, banners, and advertising.

However, it’s essential to note that you can use Montserrat as a primary font for your professional website and documentation. You can also use it for your academic or business projects.

13. Proxima Nova

Proxima Nova is a strong and versatile sans-serif font worth trying for your next professional documentation and reporting. Mark Simonson created the geometric font with industrial quality.

Proxima Nova is a hybrid of modern proportions and geometric appearance. The font was officially released in 1994 with three basic weight characters in italics.

The font was later re-released in 2005 with full features of 42 fonts, comprising seven weights in three widths with italics.

The modern Proxima Nova is fully updated with features, including support for Greek, Vietnamese, Cryllic, and various currency symbols.

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The Futura font is a unique creation of a German designer called Paul Renner . Futura can be used in various contexts thanks to its great readability and aesthetic appeal.

It has been used in social media bios, and it was used on American Football jerseys in 1997 and various video games and movies.

The Futura font family comprises about 20 fonts in six different weights and two widths. Unlike most sans-serif fonts, Futura was created primarily for display. The font is relatively low in weight, making it ideal for body text.

Futura is a work of art based on geometric shapes. The font supports lower and upper case characters and special characters. It contains 22 fonts in otf and tff formats and is perfect for daily use in print or digital purposes.

15. Franklin Gothic

Morris Fuller Benton created the Franklin Gothic font family in 1904 . The sans-serif typeface is a famous typeface you might have spotted in most software in Microsoft, advertisement texts, and newspaper headlines.

Benton gave the font the name Franklin Gothic to honor Benjamin Franklin, whom he admired for his contribution to American history and culture.

Franklin Gothic was inspired by Kabel and Futura . It has different weights, including bold, heavy, and condensed.

16. Century Gothic

Morris Fuller Benton created the Century Gothic font in 1930 . The geometric sans-serif font was initially created to replace the less versatile and legible Futura font.

Its design was heavily influenced by the 1920 and 1930 Art Deco style to reflect its sleek and modern appearance.

Since its creation, the font has become one of the most popular typefaces, best known for its clean lines, versatility, and simplicity. However, its popularity can be primarily attributed to its ability to work well with print and digital projects.

While some users may find it less legible than most sans-serif fonts, especially in small sizes, Century Gothic remains a popular choice for professional projects.

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17. Baskerville

Baskerville is one of the oldest sans-serif fonts. John Baskerville created the font in 1757 in England. The font is regarded as a transitional font since it was a stepping stone from older fonts like Caslon to modern ones like Bodoni and Didot.

Baskerville is popular for its distinct differentiation between thick and thin strokes. This differentiation makes this font look good in large sizes.

Its professional look, readability, and eye-catching appeal make it a better choice for all writing, including headers and website content.

Another excellent font for professional documentation and reports is Didot serif, which promises a clear and enjoyable reading experience. The most popular fonts from the Didot family were created between 1784 and 1811 .

Didot is believed to have drawn inspiration from John Baskerville’s experimentation with increased stroke contrast and condensed armature.

The font is perfect for any project, so go ahead and use it for all your professional projects.

Explore the best alternatives to Helvetica & Helvetica Neue here.

Myriad is a geometric sans-serif typeface created by two renowned American designers, Carol Twombly and Robert Slimbach, in the 1990s .

The Myriad font family provides a variety of styles and weights, including regular, bold, italic, bold italic, and condensed.

One of Myriad’s font family variants, Myriad Pro, has earned a good reputation worldwide for its versatility. It’s a popular logo font but also an excellent choice for multiple assignments, including writing headlines for websites, official tasks, and professional documentation.

20. Palatino

Palatino is an old sans-serif font created by Hermann Zapf in 1948. It is based on Italian humanistic fonts from the Renaissance and named after the 16th-century calligraphy master Giambattista Palatino.

Palatino was primarily created for headings. As time went by, the font became popular for body texts, overshadowing the Aldus font that Hermann had expected to be used for this role.

To date, Palatino remains one of the most widely used text fonts. It is also a creative font that will work well for your design projects.

21. Rockwell

Rockwell was designed by Frank Hinman in 1934 as a first-time font published by Monotype. It features a robust and adaptable design and is made of 15 styles. It is a popular choice for branding, body text, and other display purposes.

Its simple shapes and heaty serifs make it a top choice for brief blocks of text both for print and on-screen reading.

Its light and bold weights are perfect for creating blocks of text, while its extra bold and condensed style brings authority to display copies.

Throw in some color, and be sure to leverage Rockwell’s messaging power. Its regular and italic styles perform optimally even in the most modest screen resolutions.

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Tahoma is a humanist sans-serif font created by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation . Microsoft distributed Tahoma and Verdana as standard fonts for Windows 95.

It is a popular Windows font, which replaced Sans Serif on Windows 2003.

Tahoma is a Truetype font made of two Windows fonts, regular and bold. It was created to address on-screen display challenges, especially the small size of dialogue boxes and menus. You can rotate or scale it to any size.

23. Trebuchet MS

Vincent Connare designed the Trebuchet MS font in 1996 for Microsoft Corporation . Trebuchet MS was used for titles in the Windows XP default theme, replacing Tahoma and MS Sans Serif.

The font was released as part of Microsoft’s core fonts for the web package. To date, Trebuchet is still a popular body text font for most web pages. The Trebuchet font stands out for its appearance.

It borrows elements from geometric and humanistic classifications to infuse energy and personality into any page. Given its narrow letterforms, it’s suited for extended texts, web pages, and user interface scenarios, among others.

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Ubuntu is a sans-serif font with 22 styles and a variable with adjustable weights and width axes. The new Ubuntu font was created to enable the personality of Ubuntu to be felt in menus, buttons, and dialogues.

The scope of the Ubuntu font family includes all Ubuntu users’ languages. The font highly subscribes to the Ubuntu philosophy, which states that “every user should be able to use their software in the language of their choice.”

25. Source Sans Pro

Lastly, we have the Source Sans Pro font. This font family was created by Paul D. Hunt as the first open-source typeface for Adobe.

It draws inspiration from the clear and legible America’s 20th-century gothic typeface designs.

Besides providing clarity in short text sets, Paul’s other fundamental consideration in creating the Source Sans Pro font was a typeface that would read well in extended settings. This has been realized in its generous widths and shorter majuscule letters.

Also Read : Best CSS Web Safe Fonts

Best Fonts for Reports – Recap

In summary, Times New Roman, Garamond, Arial, and Calibri are among the most recommended fonts for reports due to their readability and professional appearance.

It’s also important to consider the medium of the report when choosing between serif and sans serif fonts.

The font size also plays a big role. A font size of 10 to 12 points is generally recommended for the body text to ensure readability.

For headings, subheadings, and labels, a sans serif font can be used for contrast and emphasis.

Boldface type font can be used sparingly to highlight important words or phrases.

Tom loves to write on technology, e-commerce & internet marketing. I started my first e-commerce company in college, designing and selling t-shirts for my campus bar crawl using print-on-demand. Having successfully established multiple 6 & 7-figure e-commerce businesses (in women’s fashion and hiking gear), I think I can share a tip or 2 to help you succeed.

What font should I choose for my thesis?

This post is by DrJanene Carey, a freelance writer and editor based in Armidale NSW. She occasionally teaches academic writing at the University of New England and often edits academic theses, articles and reports. Her website is http://www.janenecarey.com

Arguably, this question is a classic time waster and the student who poses it should be told to just get on with writing up their research. But as someone who edits theses for a living, I think a bit of time spent on fonts is part of the process of buffing and polishing what is, after all, one of the most important documents you will ever produce. Just bear in mind that there is no need to immerse yourself so deeply in the topic that you start quibbling about whether it’s a font or a typeface that you are choosing .

Times New Roman is the standard choice for academic documents, and the thesis preparation guidelines of some universities stipulate its use. For many years, it was the default body text for Microsoft Word. With the release of Office 2007, the default became a sans serif typeface called Calibri. Lacking the little projecting bits (serifs) at the end of characters makes Calibri and its many friends, such as Arial, Helvetica and Verdana, look smoother and clearer on a screen, but generally makes them less readable than a serif typeface when used for printed text . The other problem with choosing a sans serif for your body text is that if you want passages in italics (for example, lengthy participant quotes) often this will be displayed as slanted letters, rather than as a true italic font.

You would like your examiners to feel as comfortable as possible while their eyes are traversing the many, many pages of your thesis, so maximising legibility and readability is a good idea. Times New Roman is ubiquitous and familiar, which means it is probably the safest option, but it does have a couple of drawbacks. Originally designed for The Times in London, its characters are slightly narrowed, so that more of them can be squished into a newspaper column. Secondly, some people intensely dislike TNR because they think it has been overused, and regard it as the font you choose when you are not choosing a font .

If you do have the luxury of choice (your university doesn’t insist you use Times New Roman, and you have defined document styles that are easy to modify, and there’s enough time left before the submission deadline) then I think it is worth considering what other typefaces might work well with your thesis. I’m not a typographical expert, but I have the following suggestions.

• Don’t use Calibri, or any other sans serif font, for your body text, though it is fine for headings. Most people agree that dense chunks of printed text are easier to read if the font is serif, and examiners are likely to expect a typeface that doesn’t stray too far from the standard. To my eye, Calibri looks a little too casual for the body of a thesis.
• Typefaces like Garamond, Palatino, Century Schoolbook, Georgia, Minion Pro, Cambria and Constantia are all perfectly acceptable, and they come with Microsoft Word. However, some of them (Georgia and Constantia, for example) feature non-lining numerals, which means that instead of all sitting neatly on the base line, some will stand higher or lower than others, just like letters do. This looks nice when they are integrated with the text, but it is probably not what you want for a tabular display.
• Consider using a different typeface for your headings. It will make them more prominent, which enhances overall readability because the eye scanning the pages can quickly take in the hierarchy of ideas. The easiest way to get a good contrast with your serif body text is to have sans serif headings. Popular combinations are Garamond/Helvetica; Minion Pro/Myriad Pro; Times New Roman/Arial Narrow. But don’t create a dog’s breakfast by having more than two typefaces in your thesis – use point sizes, bold and italics for variety.

Of late, I’ve become quite fond of Constantia. It’s an attractive serif typeface that came out with Office 2007 at the same time as Calibri, and was specifically designed to look good in print and on screen. Increasingly, theses will be read in PDF rather than book format, so screen readability is an important consideration.  Asked to review Microsoft’s six new ClearType fonts prior to their release, typographer Raph Levien said Constantia was likely to be everyone’s favourite, because ‘Even though it’s a highly readable Roman font departing only slightly from the classical model, it still manages to be fresh and new.’

By default, Constantia has non-lining numerals, but from Word 2010 onwards you can set them to be lining via the advanced font/number forms option, either throughout your document or in specific sections, such as within tables.

Here is an excerpt from a thesis, shown twice with different typefaces. The first excerpt features Calibri headings with Constantia body text, and the second has that old favourite, Times New Roman. As these examples have been rendered as screenshots, you will get a better idea of how the fonts actually look if you try them on your own computer and printer.

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The Thesis Whisperer is written by Professor Inger Mewburn, director of researcher development at The Australian National University . New posts on the first Wednesday of the month. Subscribe by email below. Visit the About page to find out more about me, my podcasts and books. I'm on most social media platforms as @thesiswhisperer. The best places to talk to me are LinkedIn , Mastodon and Threads.

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Fonts by topic/style

Font Lists: Fonts by topic/style

Free font lists.

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Best fonts for academic papers/writing (2024)

By Ralf Herrmann (edited) | Views: 13063

• March 26, 2019

A selection of free and commercial fonts for academic use. 

A robust text typeface by David Březina. Skolar’s vast character set caters for 90+ Latin-script languages, polytonic Greek, 44+ Cyrillic languages, various Latin transliterations (Pinyin, Sanskrit), Devanagari (Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, …), and Gujarati.

Cambria Math

This is a variant of Cambria designed for mathematical and scientific texts. Cambria Math was the first font to implement the OpenType math extension, itself inspired by TeX.

The STIX Fonts project (Scientific and Technical Information Exchange) is a project sponsored by several leading scientific and technical publishers to provide, under royalty-free license, a comprehensive font set of mathematical symbols and alphabets, intended to serve the scientific and engineering community for electronic and print publication. The STIX fonts are available as hinted OpenType/CFF fonts.

Commissioned by Dutch publisher Brill and designed by Tiro Typework’s John Hudson, it presents complete coverage of the Latin script with the full range of diacritics and linguistics (IPA) characters used to display any language from any period correctly, and Greek and Cyrillic are also covered, for a total of 5,100 characters, each available in roman, italic, bold, and bold italic. These fonts will be especially suited for humanities scholars quoting from texts in any language, ancient or modern. Freely available for non-commercial use.

Designed by TypeTogether for the Google Play Books app, it supports Greek, Cyrillic, PinYin, and Vietnamese.

Now with optical sizes and also available in variable font format.

Andron Mega

Andron Mega Corpus is a particular comprehensive font family designed to meet the peculiar requirements of multiscriptual scientific editing. The Andron Mega 1.4 package contains now altogether about 14,700 glyphs in six separate fonts: Regular, Italic, Semibold, Semibold italic, Regular small capitals and Italic small capitals. The Regular font is by far the most comprehensive one: it contains about 5,800 glyphs.

Charis SIL is a Unicode-based font family that supports the wide range of languages that use the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. It is specially designed to make long texts pleasant and easy to read, even in less than ideal reproduction and display environments.

Designed by Matthew Butterick specifically with legal writing in mind.

Gentium is a typeface family designed to enable the diverse ethnic groups around the world who use the Latin, Cyrillic and Greek scripts to produce readable, high-quality publications. It supports a wide range of Latin- and Cyrillic-based alphabets.

Junicode (short for Junius-Unicode) is a TrueType/OpenType font for medievalists with extensive coverage of the Latin Unicode ranges, plus Runic and Gothic. The font comes in four faces. Of these, regular and italic are fullest, featuring complete implementation of the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative recommendation, version 4.0.

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Posted January 17, 2020

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I suppose this list could be extended ad infinitum (or perhaps even ad nauseam ), but these options (applicable especially in Linguistics work, or anything that stress-tests Latin Extended, Additional, etc. ranges) should be welcome additions here (and all “free” of one kind or another):

• Alegreya ht :: Huerta Tipográfica
• EB Garamond
• Linguistics Pro | which is based on Slimbach’s Utopia
• Vollkorn Typeface

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Best Research Paper Font and Size: Best Styles for an Essay

The Best Word Font in Research Paper

As you edit and polish your research paper, you should know the suitable font when formatting. Many students struggle to locate suitable fonts that are appropriate for academia. Thankfully, most of the writing styles such as APA or MLA end this frustration by indicating the right fonts to use in your work.

Many instructors indicate the type of fonts students should use in their assignments. That is because some fonts are large hence prompting one to use more pages than indicated in the instructions section.

People Also Read: Can Dissertation be a Case Study: Research Example and Format

Best Font for Research Paper

The choice of fonts can affect your academic writing work. The right font should make your work remain credible and professional. Dressing your work with the right fonts is procuring a suitable image.

Ideally, the best font for a research paper is the Times New Roman as it is clear and most requested by university and college faculties. Other common ones are the Arial and Calibri fonts, which are preferred because of their large size compared with New Times Roman.

Some fonts can be attractive but hard to read because they have several curls and curves.

When handling research work, use the correct font which has enough allowance between letters to avoid overcrowding.

The professional fonts should be easy to read. The good news for you is that Times New Roman is a popular choice for academic documents.

It is the safest option because most examiners are comfortable with it. Notably, New Times Roman has sound APA support.

People Also Read: Can a Research Paper be Opinionated: Persuasive or Personal

Best Font Size for Research Paper

The best font size for a research paper is point 12. This size is the most common ones, especially for New Times Roman, Arial or Calibri fonts. Basically, the size of the fonts should make your work to be readable without straining the audience. We measure size using ‘points’.

Most academic research papers use MLA, APA, and Harvard references and formats.

The point is a percentage of the screen that the font is occupying. For academic papers, the recommended size is 12 points. It is the most comfortable size for the audience without looking oversized or bulky.

 The font size plays a critical role in making your research work impressive and appealing.

The writer should use the official font size when submitting the project.

This size is key when you want to determine the number of pages that your project should carry.

We use font 12 to calculate and know the number of pages the entire work will have to avoid going beyond or under the given guideline.

If you use a different font size, you may exceed or hit below the word count leading to disqualification or any other penalty as the lecturer may decide.

Commonly Used Fonts for Academic Work

Different writing styles recommend certain fonts for students to use while tackling academic work. Some of them are as follows:

Times New Roman

Times New Roman has an authoritative look and feel. It became into practice in 1932 to enhance the legibility and economy of space. This Times New Roman has a narrow printing point that is easily readable.

Arial has been the most used font for the past thirty years. One of the characteristics of Arial fonts is that they have rounded faces. Furthermore, the edges of the letters do not manifest in the horizontal line. Instead, these edges are at an angle.

Besides, this font is easy to read whether used in both large and small blocks. It is a perfect format that one can use in academic work.

Calibri is a humanist font with variable strokes and designs. It is a pretty-looking font suitable for large displays such as presentations.

People Also Read : Research Paper Due Tomorrow: Not started, we Write in hours

Factors Determining the Font and Size for Academic Writing

1. teachers instructions.

When you receive your essay assignment, peruse through and find the preferred font type and size. Some professors are comfortable with particular fonts.

The professor will indicate the preferred font for your work. You can begin by writing and polishing your work with your font and size and later format it according to instructions.

Most academic papers target certain pages of the assignments.

For example, when the instructions demand that you use Times New Roman, you should stick to that for you to produce the right number of pages as guided by the instructions.

Teachers know that when you use a particular font and size for your research, you will produce the correct quantity after researching.

2. Your Eye Ability

One will feel comfortable when using certain fonts than others. Reading and writing while you are straining your eyes to see your work can be disastrous. The cool thing is you can settle for the fonts that can make your eye enjoy beholding your work.

Several fonts exist to use for your work without straining your eyes. However, you should ensure that you settle for the right font when formatting your final documents.

For example, some fonts have curls or curves that make affect the readability of your work. Such can make your professor respond unkindly.

If the professor did not offer guidance to you, then you can use the correct font according to the writing styles recommendations.

3. Teacher’s Font Preference and Eye Abilities

A teacher may instruct that you use certain fonts when submitting your project work. More importantly, even if it is not your favorite font to use, you should stick to the instructions and complete your work as guided.  

We have varying eye abilities. Some are comfortable and safe to use a particular font like Arial because they do not strain the eyes while using it. Some fonts are not friendly to some people when working, making your entire writing experience to be hostile.

If you can work well with 12 point font size, well and good. In case the lecturer wants point size 10, use a comfortable font during your writing and editing process then change it to the recommended size before submitting.

4. Type of the Academic work, Essays vs Graphics

The type of academic work dictates the type of font to use for effective delivery. If you are writing an essay, you should use the recommended fonts and sizes as per the writing styles. These styles are MLA, APA, and so on.

You should not use any font which is not official to any writing style. If unsure, it is sensible to consult your instructor and remain on the correct track.

On the other hand, you should also use the correct font when you are working with graphics in your academic projects.

Just like essays, the graphics also have official fonts that students should use when designing and captioning them. Sticking to the rules makes your work hold a professional appeal.

Graphics are the perfect ways of presenting information to make readers create the right perceptions at a glance. Luckily, you should caption them with the recommended fonts and sizes for better delivery.

5. Personal Preference

What appeals to one writer differs from what makes a different writer excited and comfortable. What does that mean? Different writers have varying impressions about what fonts and sizes work for them.

If the instructions for your projects are open to allow you to use multiple fonts from the given list, you should settle for your favorite from the list.

That implies that the instructor may be marking papers that will come with varying font types according to the writer’s preference from the given list of options.

6. Readability

There is no secret in this. Some fonts are more readable than others.

For example, when you are using Times New Roman as your favorite font, it will consume less space but score high on legibility.

Remember, a readable document is an attractive document. Do not compromise on this. Use the right font that is legible and easy to read.

Based on the recommended fonts for particular styles, choose the one that looks more attractive.

Check out our tips on how to name a research paper for more guidance on how to prepare your paper before submitting it. This may improve the clarity of your file and promote grading.

When not handling complex essays and academic writing tasks, Josh is busy advising students on how to pass assignments. In spare time, he loves playing football or walking with his dog around the park.

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Scientific Fonts: How to Select the Right One

Choosing the right font for the right kind of content is imperative, this article will aid your decision when it comes to scientific fonts.

It can be very difficult to choose the ideal font for a project, as any graphics designer could confirm. Deciding the font becomes more important when you anticipate its extensive and frequent usage.

It’s an essential part of typography , which is the art of making your design appear visually cohesive. A font group’s general design usually kicks off the search, but with a little digging, you can find yourself in the creator’s most detailed selection.

There are a number of research studies that have focused on typography to discover some good grounds for selecting a particular font for a particular project category.

It is also best to pick a professional font that is easy to read without many extraneous features.

Scientific research, for example, should be written in such a manner that the reader focuses on the information, not just the format.

Some people find today’s scientific fonts boring and overdone. Because of their legibility and simplicity, these fonts are everywhere. Use a trusted font to make your work appear professional.

In terms of font selection, there are more considerations than seem to be apparent at first glance. For instance, some fonts have a reputation for being legitimate, while others don’t.

We have a handful of scientific findings to share throughout this article in the hopes that they will aid your decision-making when it comes to scientific fonts.

If you have ever found the choice of fonts intimidating, the purpose of this article is to offer guidance and information to help you make a decision.

What is the importance of Fonts?

When a typeface is carefully chosen, it is able to deliver the desired effect to the reader, and give the words the sense of life they deserve, all the while reflecting the field it represents.

The font represents the words on a page visually instead of an image, allowing the words to convey their intended meanings as they are read. A font that is too large or small may not convey the seriousness of some issues or messages.

What is the most recent time that you wrote a text or sent an email and the words were read incorrectly? We can communicate more effectively using our vocal tonality, simple hand gestures and expressions, we can convey our message more effectively than simple words on a paper.

On fancy documents such as invitations, using a script font can be spectacular, but on children’s books it can look off, and in the event of too much text it may not be readable.

As you can see, choosing the right font for the right kind of content is very important. However, using the right font is only part of the equation. Misleading fonts result in incorrect information.

7 fonts that strengthen scientific research’s credibility and professional appearance

In recent years, fonts.com has reported that Arial is among the most used typefaces. With its distinctly contemporary design, Arial is more in sync with the last decade of the twentieth century than many of its predecessors.

There is no horizontal line at the bottom of the edges of Arial letters. They are angled instead. It helps give the face a more organic appearance by cutting the terminals on a diagonal.

The Arial family of typefaces is incredibly robust. Suitable for setting text for reports, articles, publications, and for use in display media, newspapers, and promotional materials.

Whether you’re writing small or large chunks of text, Arial makes reading easy. Figures should be formatted in Arial or Helvetica as per Nature’s instructions.

Labels and legends in particular benefit from this typeface. As a rule of thumb, keep font sizes small *8 points when using Arial for figure legends.

2. Baskerville

Designed by John Baskerville in 1757, Baskerville is a typeface that can be read easily and looks good in print.  The letters were straightforward and elegant according to Baskerville.

Here and there, Baskerville font was found to increase reliability of text in comparison to other fonts. The readers’ behavior on the same study was most negatively influenced by Comic Sans.

The Baskerville family of fonts are known as the first transitional roman. These fonts distinguish between thin and thick strokes. The large size of Baskerville looks good because of this feature.

Based on its serif style, Baskerville has “tails” on the edges of its letters. This font is best suited for printing. For long text blocks, it is most suitable.

For best results, try to keep the font size between 8 and 14 points. Then your text will look more professional.

3. Helvetica

The most commonly used font is Helvetica. Max Miedinger, a Swiss designer, initially created Helvetica in 1957.

Designed to be simple to read, the font immediately gained popularity. It is named after the Latin term for Switzerland, Helvetia. Neue Helvetica is the name of the newer version of the font, which was introduced in 1983.

Even a movie has been made about Helvetica. Helvetica is not only a Hollywood (Indie) font, it looks fantastic on screen and print. 

Science, Nature, and Cell ask for the figure captions to be in Helvetica.  Even though it looks good when printed in small formats, it looks even better when printed in large formats.

It’s hard for authors to keep track of how many figures they’ve labelled with Helvetica now, since that’s what publishers use.

In spite of Georgia’s role in providing clarity at low resolutions on the screen, it is imbued with a typographic aesthetic that strikes a chord with readers.

This friendly face is evident even at small sizes. A stunning, smooth italic accompanies Georgia’s design; the artwork minimizes the complexity of making a screen-friendly italic.

As opposed to many contemporary typefaces, it has authentic italics, including the slender lowercase letters a and g.

The bold weight is also carefully tailored, with a heavier weight than the regular; this is particularly useful at small screen sizes where the two weights must be distinguished(phone screens).

5. Garamond

The history of this font also dates back a long way. French King Francis I of France (1515-1547) commissioned Claude Garamond to design a typeface for use in a series of books.

It was revived by Robert Slimbach in 1989 as an electric typeface. Garamond comes in many different variations because there are different sources available. The most commonly used version is Adobe Garamond.

French publishers continue to use Garamond extensively. Size 9 is also a must for Garamond in France.  The history of France’s publishing industry is published in Garamond, as is Histoire de l’édition française . 

This font was chosen due to its elegance, opulence, and legibility as well as a simple layout highlighting the detailed writing and offer an enlightened insight on the contemporary aspect of the content.

In long documents such as thesis papers, dissertations, and academic books, Garamond is a reliable font to use. Garamond is the font that many master’s thesis writers use.

Among the long-established fonts is Caslon. The typeface was designed in the early 1700s by William Caslon. English typefaces began with this one. It was a common font used in colonial America, and even the US Declaration of Independence was written with this font.

Because there is no enforceable trademark on the name “Caslon”, there are many typefaces called “Caslon”, some of which are exact copies of the originals, while others are not.

It is best used in blocks of text since it is a serif font (with tails). If you want best results, keep the font size between 8 and 14 points, as you would with Baskerville. The best place to make use of this would be in an application or a report.

7. Times New Roman

First published by The Times of London newspaper in 1932, this typeface was designed for the publication.

In the years since, it has evolved into one of the most popular typefaces in the world. Victor Lardent at The Times created the original designs under the direction of Stanley Morison.

Monotype’s Type Drawing Office then further refined it in an extensive step-by-step process. Many of its characteristics were taken from Morison’s experiments with Perpetua and Plantin, but it was adapted so that it was highly readable and also very efficient.

There are vast uses for it in books and journals, in reports, in presentations, and in advertising.

Is there anything else you need to think about when selecting the right font?

When choosing a font, there are a number of things to keep in mind besides these categories. For example, does it have all the features you are looking for?

You may be able to get away with just using the letters of the alphabet for the first piece, but what if you have to write a quick article for the public?

Are there symbols such as a currency symbol or exclamation point in the text? Especially when you are submitting a funding proposal. (Read our guide to everything you need to know about Research Proposals .)

Every once in a while, we find ourselves trying to add a price but the symbol we need isn’t there.

As well as the font size, there are other considerations, such as does it come in many sizes and styles or are only light, regular and bold available?

If you don’t have a lot of specifics, that’s alright, but you should take into account a broader perspective and what you intend to accomplish.

When it comes to communicating your message, different font sizes can be really helpful. Despite the fact that it’s good to have different typefaces, there is a rule that suggests only using a maximum of three typefaces in one contribution.

If you use any more than that, you risk-taking away the emphasis of what is being said. Complementary fonts are important, but they shouldn’t be too similar as this could result in a cluttered look that could be confusing.

Lastly, when picking a font, we should consider the print aspects to ensure it will be easy to read. These factors include colour, size, and style. The most decorative script fonts may look good, but they aren’t always a good option.

Hence, make sure to put into consideration every possible aspect of the information that may be published around the world through various mediums.

How to use Scientific fonts?

A reader’s primary objective should be to understand the facts about your project clearly. An easy-to-read document will help you achieve that goal.

The editors of newspapers, as well as publishers of journals, have developed many guidelines to make text more readable. These guidelines are now available for scientific purposes.

• Keep the main body text font size at least 16 points . Any smaller would make the text difficult to read.
• A project title should have a minimum height of 2 inches.
• It is recommended that headlines have at least one inch tall letters .
• If you want to stay with the norm, use Arial , Times New Roman , or another typeface similar to these.
• If you intend to draw attention to anything, use italics or boldface .
• Place your text below your picture ; that makes it easier to read.
• Please refrain from using ALL CAPS ; they can be difficult to perceive.
• You should not use reverse typeface (light text on dark background).
• If you type in a script font, avoid using artistic fonts , since they are harder to follow.
• You can choose between Serif or Sans Serif depending on the medium or the audience you will be addressing to.
• Your poster or paper should not contain more than two or three contrasting fonts .
• For body copy and headings, Time New Roman and Arial combine nicely.

Please note that every journal or publication house has different guidelines based on how they handle submissions, so make sure you check them.

It is also important to consider the medium on which the text will appear when choosing a font. Posters will need to have better fonts that appear decent when printed.

Selecting the wrong font can negatively affect future decision-making. It is important to remember that the typeface that you select to present your research or information will have a major impact on its effectiveness.

Make sure you make the right choice because it will leave a meaningful impression on the reader. (You can learn how to create an outstanding presentation that will leave the audience impressed, here )

Fonts for scientific illustrations and infographics

Infographics, or informational graphics, are a growing trend in data presentation. This style of presentation allows you to convey your message quickly and easily.

In order to make complex topics understandable, illustrations are extremely useful. A good font is essential no matter what.(See our guide to scientific illustrations )

Your choice of font is as important as the research itself when it comes to presenting it. (In most cases.) Generally, book, journal, and newspaper fonts are serif fonts, which are characterized by small lines at the end of each stroke.

The vast majority of online content uses sans serif fonts. Serif fonts make it easier for readers to follow lines of text, which is certainly useful when designing illustrations or use the infographic maker.

The best typeface for graphic design is sans serif. Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Verdana, and open sans, which are readily available, improve content legibility significantly.

If you understand how certain font choices affect the composition of your content, deciding on a family of fonts and a typography scheme becomes much more straightforward.

As you become more familiar with the values, tone, and vision of the work, you will begin to can identify what works. It is possible to convey your ideas in a non-verbal and yet powerful way, using fonts.

Now that we have reached our final section, you should also know where to find all the fonts in one place.

You can find all the best science fonts for graphic design at one place

We at mind the graph understand the importance of typography and how it plays an integral part in representation of scientific ideas. Mind the graph, the most user-friendly tool.

Scientists and academicians from over 100 top academic, educational, and industrial institutions trust Mind the Graph. This is why everything is up-to-date and scientifically sound.

You will find all the A to Z fonts you need for all things scientific here. Besides that, we also suggest fonts that are appropriate for your content type. You can choose from the list we have.

Furthermore, we have many templates to assist in the creation of posters and graphics. Additionally, they can be customized according to your needs. However, guess what is even better than that? We offer a FREE trial, so you can decide what plan fits you best. 

When you join, you join us in our mission to increase easy access to the best science tool for as many people as possible. Our blog section has a variety of information about everything from making Science posters to a list of the best science podcasts of 2022, definitely worth checking out.

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The 24 Most Professional Fonts to Use

Selecting the right font is an important design choice that can enhance—or detract from—the professionalism of a document. With thousands of fonts to choose from, the possibilities may seem endless. However, not all fonts are well-suited for professional business communications and documents.

This comprehensive guide explores the 24 most professional fonts to create polished, credible business documents that leave a positive impression. We analyse characteristics like readability, legibility, clarity, formality, visual appeal, and versatility to determine which fonts will top for professional use cases in 2024.

A Serif Sensation: Traditional Serif Fonts Offer Readability & Polish

1. times new roman.

This quintessential serif font designed for the New York Times newspaper 1931 remains a staple choice to exude professionalism. The fluid serifs and sturdy letterforms allow Times New Roman to be readable in print. The versatile design also displays well digitally. This font suggests the competence and trustworthiness key for professional communications.

Designed by Matthew Carter in 1993, this serif typeface contains thick, bracketed serifs for enhanced readability. Slightly wider letter proportion compared to Times New Roman improves clarity while maintaining a highly legible 11-point font size. The chunky, semi-bold weight is warm and refined for formal business uses.

3. Bookman Old Style

This classic, versatile serif face echoes Old Style typefaces used in publishing from the mid-1500s into the 1900s. Designed in 1884 by Alexander Lawson for the Century Schoolbook , the slightly condensed letterforms offer a more compact footprint without compressing readability. The sturdy serifs, graceful curves and horizontal stress suggest Old World heritage, perfect for adding gravitas to professional communications.

Key Takeaway: Traditional serif fonts like Times New Roman, Georgia and Bookman Old Style offer proven readability and polish well-suited for formal business documents.

Distinctive & Dignified: Transitional Serifs Bridge Generations

4. baskerville.

This refined, stately serif face designed by John Baskerville in 1757 defined transitional serif styles, forging a bridge from Old Style to modern looks. The crisp edges offer exceptional clarity, while distinctive ball terminals on letter curves add flair. Baskerville brings heritage elegance to contemporary professional settings, from resumes to reports.

5. New Baskerville

Released in 1917, this refreshed Baskerville interpretation by designer George W. Jones is often preferred for clarity on screens and modern printing presses. The slightly thicker strokes offer a bolder definition without compromising legibility. Pair with Georgia for font contrast that delivers professional polish.

6. Times Ten

Photosetting provider Linotype released this updated take on Times New Roman in 1990 to improve output on low-resolution printers and poor-quality paper stock. Subtle changes like shortened ascenders and descenders optimise modern legibility without forfeiting professional persona. The economical proportions also save space.

Key Takeaway: Transitional serif typefaces like Baskerville, New Baskerville and Times Ten marry historical richness with sharp digital display for today’s professional contexts.

Modern Serifs Marry Heritage With Contemporary Flair

Created by renowned German typographer Jan Tschichold in 1964, Sabon draws inspiration from classic Garamond designs but optimises for modern requirements. The Roman letterforms offer exceptional clarity and even texture suitable for continuous business reading—an excellent choice to communicate expertise.

8. ITC Legacy Serif

This 1993 serif release from the International Typeface Corporation retains Times New Roman’s professional personality but exhibits tighter spacing and finer hairlines for improved modern display. The condensed proportions occupy less real estate, allowing more content presentation.

9. Merriweather

Designed by Eben Sorkin in 2010 for Google Web Fonts, this free serif selection exhibits classic proportions and styling adapted for optimal clarity across print, web and digital media. The understated design promotes continuous reading while conveying competence for various professional communications, from handouts to websites.

Key Takeaway: Modern serif font interpretations like Sabon, ITC Legacy Serif and Merriweather smartly evolve heritage styling for today's professional, multi-media business needs.

Sans Serif Fonts Signal Modernity For The Digital Era

Initially designed by Monotype in 1982 to offer Helvetica -style appeal more economically, this ubiquitous neo-grotesque sans serif font conveys professionalism and modernity. The comfortably spaced proportions ensure approachability while promoting exceptional on-screen readability.

11. Helvetica Neue

This seminal, globally recognised neo-grotesque face originated from the 1957 Helvetica release. Designer Max Meidinger evolved the styling in 1983 to enhance spacing and strokes for improved digital rendering. The Swiss heritage of architectural clarity and purity perseveres through this digitally-optimized typeface.

12. Calibri

As the default font for Microsoft Office programs and Windows since 2007, Calibri offers a humanist sans serif option deeply familiar to modern business professionals. The rounded contours ensure approachability while the reliable rendering remains professionally polished across documents, slides, forms and other uses.

Key Takeaway: Leading neo-grotesque sans serifs like Arial, Helvetica Neue, and Calibri adopt simplified styling that crisply conveys professional digital-age messaging.

Specialised Sans Serifs Target Professional Needs

13. clearviewhwy.

Specifically tailored for road signage by designer Don Meeker in 1998, this humanist sans serif face allows extraordinary readability for content viewed from a moving vehicle. Tested and proven across state transportation departments, Clearview denotes authority for wayfinding signage applications.

14. Frutiger

This Univers-inspired sans serif, designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1976, improves visual hierarchy through letter variation. Numerals and glyphs are easily distinguished from letters to enhance clarity for signage and labelling purposes. The streamlined Swiss styling also denotes modern efficiency.

15. FF Mark

Designed by Erik Spiekermann in 2009, FF Mark offers a simplified, dotless construction derived from industrial German engineering and architectural signage applications dating to the 19th century. The functional format, stripped of superfluous strokes, delivers clear communication of professional content.

Key Takeaway: Field-specific sans serifs like ClearviewHwy, Frutiger , and FF Mark provide optimised displays targeted for professional signage or technical applications.

Authoritative & Distinctive: Professional Slab Serifs

16. rockwell.

Designer Frank Hinman released this bold, sturdy slab serif font 1934 for the Inland Type Foundry. The thick, monolinear strokes offer substantial visual presence, while softened rectangles lend friendlier allure. Rockwell brings commanding gravitas yet approachable warmth simultaneously to business communications.

HCI editor Matthew Carter designed this efficient slab serif family in 2001 for media conglomerate Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia exclusive use. Structured, compact strokes ensure clarity even at small sizes on inferior printing presses, maximising professional polish for publishing at scale.

18. Roboto Slab

Christian Robertson expanded his 2013 Roboto humanist sans serif into serif and slab serif families as core Google Fonts selections. Roboto Slab’s modern appearance and responsiveness across digital platforms offer a distinctive professional personality deviating from traditional expressions.

Key Takeaway: Distinctive professional slab serifs like Rockwell, Archer and Roboto Slab couple commanding visual presence with sturdy legibility to elevate business content .

Specialist Display Fonts Grab Professional Attention

This imposing caps-only Roman square capital's face echoes the solid strokes displayed prominently on Trajan ’s Column monument erected circa 113 AD. The all-caps letterforms project monumentality, allowing this font to emphasise professional titles, logos, signage and headlines with gravitas.

Paul Renner’s 1927 milestone project encapsulated Modernist design with ideological efficiency through ordered, geometric strokes. Branding professionals leverage Futura to communicate focus and innovation, while design principals rely on minimal expression to emphasise information density.

Inspired by architectural signage, designer Tobias Frere-Jones crafted this bold, structural alphabet in 2000 to evoke steadfast New York heritage. Professional designers rely on Gotham’s straightforward style to communicate confidence through headlines, titles, and branding elements .

Key Takeaway: Columnar Trajan, modern Futura, and architectural Gotham offer scalable display fonts to attract professional interest to titles, branding and headlines.

Handwritten Fonts Convey Personal and Professional Approachability

22. dearsarah sf pro.

Software developers Balance Type Foundry crafted this stylish, contemporary handwritten face in 2021 to inject personal warmth into professional communications. Ligatures between specific letter pairs boost intimacy while practising restraint to sustain polish, befitting more formal contexts like event invitations or featured callouts.

23. Sf Handwriting Dakota

This casual handwritten font comes courtesy of the digital agency Design K to resonate authentically with personal correspondence for professional introductions or outreach touchpoints. Designed with multilingual support, the global accessibility remains professionally inclusive.

24. Homemade Apple

Independent type designer Sam Parrett delivers this distinctive, organic handwritten face that combines whimsical, retro warmth akin to scampering chalkboard renderings with the approachability of a trusted neighbour. Professional applications could include feature headers in reports or emphasis lines within newsletters to boost engagement.

Key Takeaway: Casual handwritten fonts like DearSarah SF Pro, SF Handwriting Dakota, and Homemade Apple humanise professional messaging through personalised execution.

Combining Complementary Fonts Creates Hierarchy & Contrast

When combining fonts for professional communications:

• Align Serif & Sans Serif Faces – Pairing a serif such as Garamond or Times New Roman with a sans serif like Arial or Helvetica offers visual hierarchy through contrast.
• Vary Weights For Emphasis – Mix heavy, light or condensed weights of compatible font families to make key content stand out.
• Highlight Display vs Text – Blend sturdy display fonts like Impact or Gotham to accent readable text choices like Georgia or Calibri.
• Maintain Consistent Typography – Limit professional font combinations to 2 or 3 compatible families and remain consistent across branded touchpoints.

Key Takeaway: Thoughtfully blending 2-3 complementary fonts into professional communications clarifies visual hierarchy through strategic contrast.

5 Key Criteria Define Great Professional Fonts

• Readability – Strong letterforms deliver content consumption efficiently
• Legibility – Distinct characters discern at small sizes
• Clarity – Crisp definition promotes engagement
• Compatibility – Adapts gracefully across media formats
• Personality – Unique traits align with context

Key Takeaway: Professional font technical effectiveness must match appropriate contextual emotion and personality to achieve communications goals fully.

Most Professional Fonts – Recap At A Glance

• Serif – Times New Roman, Sabon, Georgia, Merriweather
• Sans Serif – Arial, Helvetica Neue, ClearviewHwy
• Slab Serif – Archer, Roboto Slab, Rockwell
• Display – Futura, Gotham, Trajan
• Handwritten – DearSarah SF Pro, Homemade Apple

Conclusion: Apply Thoughtful Typography For Professional Results

This expansive guide highlights 24 exceptional font faces spanning common professional categories like Serif, Sans Serif, Slab Serif, Display and Handwritten. Each recommended font qualifies for business usage through optimal legibility, compatibility across modern media, and personality characteristics that strategically match professional communications goals.

While the highlighted selections represent esteemed options, designers must carefully contemplate additional criteria like industry context, audience demographics and branded guidelines when specifying fonts for professional documents or communications. Traditional selections like Times New Roman remain prudent choices that reliably convey professional expectations for specific formal uses like legal briefs or financial statements. More progressive companies may incorporate distinctive yet legible modern fonts like Helvetica Neue or Roboto Slab to signal forward-thinking, design-focused appeal.

Above all, professional font selections rely on thoughtful implementation aligned to the specifics of the intended communication and consumption formats. Suitable fonts effectively capture attention, sharpen hierarchy, strengthen retention and promote clarity to optimise audience engagement. As fine dining plates must be expertly paired to complemental courses, precision font selections elevate messaging while underscoring competence and care through thoughtful typographic presentation.

Review these 24 versatile professional fonts for your next communications project, effortlessly conveying your expertise through strategic typography optimised for business results.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Professional Fonts

What are the top 5 most professional fonts.

The five most versatile and professionally appropriate fonts include Times New Roman (Serif), Arial (Sans Serif), Archer (Slab Serif), Futura (Display) and DearSarah SF (Script). Each reliably offers legibility, compatibility and polish for business uses.

What font does Google use?

Product Sans is the primary Google font applied in branding and communications. The custom-designed geometric sans serif offers friendly simplicity aligned with Google's accessible brand personality.

What is the most attractive font?

Beauty proves subjective; attractive fonts vary by audience and context. Classic serifs like Bodoni and Didot offer elegant, fashionable appeal. Friendlier picks like Brush Script and Great Vibes provide emotive warmth. Helvetica Neue and Futura convey sleek modernity.

What fonts do lawyers use?

Legal conventions rely on tradition, so most attorneys use customary fonts like Times New Roman, Arial and Courier New for contracts, rulings and communications upholding document integrity expectations. More progressive firms occasionally incorporate contemporary alternatives like Calibri and Georgia.

What font size is best for professional documents?

Content legibility proves essential for professional communications. Print documents should use at least 11pt font size. Digital presentations can scale down to 8pt font size. Headings should run 2-4pts larger to establish hierarchy. More essential documents may use 12-14pt for optimal clarity.

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How to Make an Essay Look Longer

It’s somewhat difficult to make demands on essays for students – demanding that they have 500 words, for example, leads to really, really, very, extremely superfluous lists of adjectives and describing words like this sentence to up the word count. Other teachers use the page count as a metric of completion. But what happens when you have 4 and a half pages done of your five page essay? There are plenty of writing techniques to flesh ideas out and make it longer, but I’m assuming that your essay is perfect as it is and you want a more technological answer. Here are a few techniques that have served me well. I use them all the time.

Note: This tutorial is for Microsoft Word as a part of Office 2007, although many of the same techniques can be used in previous or subsequent versions of Word.

Font Choice and Font Size

First, font or font size is a fairly easy way to make an essay longer. Some teachers demand that Times New Roman size 12 be used. However, when they forget to add that to the rules, you can change it to whatever you want (assuming there’s no blanket statement about it on the syllabus). You want to choose a font that maximizes height. Obviously you don’t want to choose a font that’s too difficult to read, as it may annoy the person grading it. Below is a picture of the word “Hello” printed four times, each at size 12. The fonts, from left to right, are “Angsana New”, “Calibri”, “Times New Roman”, and “Algerian”.

Font size can also make a big impact on your paper. Going with a size 72 font will undoubtedly make your paper surpass the required page count, but isn’t the best idea. Just changing the font size from 12 to 13 can add a few lines to your paper. Below is a picture of identical text in two columns, both in Times New Roman, but size 12 on the left and size 13 on the right.

Even if your teacher demands size 12 Times New Roman, you might be tempted to change it anyway. Slight changes are fairly hard to measure in a printout, however, it is possible. For instance, if a teacher were to print out the word “the” in Times New Roman size 12 on a piece of transparency paper, they could then hold it over a word “the” in your essay and confirm whether or not it’s identical. Probably not going to happen, but it actually has happened to me before.

Space Between lines

The spacing between lines is very difficult to measure because although in most fonts the top and bottom edges vary significantly. In some fonts, there is a common edge except for letters that hang above or below the line, but in fonts that are meant to look more like handwriting, there is not. In any case, even with common edges, it’s not likely that your teacher will whip out a ruler and measure. Too large a gap may arouse suspicion, but changing an essay from double spaced to 2.1 spacing may actually make a large difference. The thing to remember is that the longer the base essay, the more they amplify the length. So for instance, if your essay is 10 lines with double spacing, and you change the spacing to 2.1, you get an extra 0.1 of a line for every line you’ve written, and 0.1×10 = 1. So, for every ten lines you actually write, you get the effect of having written eleven instead. For an essay that’s 4.5 pages, this tiny change can easily bring you over the 5 page mark and is virtually undetectable. Below is two paragraphs, the left with single spacing and the right is 1.1 spacing. This really demonstrates the potential of the small change.

To change the spacing between lines, you’ll need to access the “Paragraph” menu (I believe that in older versions of Word this could be done by going to Format -> Paragraph). In Word 2007, it can be accessed by going to the “Page Layout” tab of the ribbon and clicking on the pop-out button of the Paragraph rectangle.

From there, under Line Spacing, choose “Multiple”, and under At, choose a number close to something normal, like 1.1 or 2.1. You can increase this difference at the risk of the teacher noticing.

Changing the margins of a page is another great way to change the length of your paper. By decreasing the amount of space the words can take up per page, you increase the number of pages required to fit your existing content. Changing the left margin is a bit risky since most papers are left-justified, meaning that the left edge will be relatively the same for all papers. The right margin, however, can be changed to your heart’s content, since the length of words, number of letters, and number of spaces greatly affect each line’s right edge. You can also increase the amount of space taken up by the header and footer of a document.

Lengthen Header Content

One final way you can make a paper appear longer is by adding more lines to the header of your document. If you make it too long, be sure to have it on only the first page and not every page, as this would be incredibly obvious.

Other Notes

If your teacher demands that an essay be 5 pages long and no longer , but your paper is slightly longer, you can use these same techniques in reverse to make your paper look shorter . For instance, you can change double spacing to 1.9 spacing, or increase the margins.

111 Comments

If you must have MLA format and the essay is turned in electronically the teachers will be able to see the changes of font size and other things. So the easiest thing for me is to increase the font size of just the periods to 14 instead of the required 12 font. This makes your essay lines more spaced out and sentences longer. Even though it is not a huge change, it makes a very big difference.

In addition to that, I usually add just enough description to my sentences in order to barely create one new line of text before going to the next paragraph. It is also beneficial to end a paragraph on the second to last line of a page. That way the next paragraph is forced to appear on the next page altogether.

If you are turning in your essay online, use these and the larger font periods only, as everything else will likely be checked by the system when you upload it.

If you turn it in online, turn it in in PDF format, it’s standardized and they can’t see the font size easily

Unfortunately, this is not true. While it may not be obvious ow to inspect a PDF to get the font, the easiest thing to do is copy some text and paste it into Microsoft Word – it’ll retain its font.

This + the commas

THANKS GANG

REALLY REALLY LIKE THIS

This helped me so much!!!

It’s 5 am, my paper’s topic would have sent me to sleep hours ago if it weren’t for the Red Bulls, and you’ve been added to my list of “People I Will Buy a Drink for if I Ever Meet Them”.

You my good sir have just made my night! If you’re ever in Atlanta I will be MORE than happy to buy you a drink as well! 🙂

I don’t know you. But I love you.

You are amazing. Another thing that I tried at one time was to bold the periods. it made my 4 1/4 page research paper into a 5 page paper. Just trying to help out some more.

Recently I had to write a 12-page essay on a mostly-factual topic. It wasn’t pretty. I was on the eleventh page when I found that I simply couldn’t add any more to the paper no matter how I tried. A quick change to all the margins from 1.0 to 1.1 boosted my essay to fill the entire twelfth page! I wish I had found this article earlier, though, as I didn’t know that modifying the left margin is risky.

In retrospect, I really should have just changed the line spacing from 2.0 to 2.1, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that thanks to Word’s confusing line spacing interface. Now I know that I can set the spacing to “multiple” and achieve the desired effect!

I also recommend “adding space between paragraphs of the same style” as is done by default in Word 2010. It doesn’t make a really significant difference, but for every paragraph you write you’ll gain about 1 extra line.

To all you essay writers out there: these techniques should really only be used as a last resort. If you are able to flush out your entire essay, do that instead of modifying its layout. Only when you are completely stuck and need just one more page or so should you use the strategies here.

I was struggling to write 10 pages of term paper. Thank you for the tips!!!!

10? I can barely write 5 wow

Thank you!! =,) Thank you so much!

tnx so much that helps a lot .I had to write 3 pages and I only had 1 page and ur advice works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You sir are amazing. Thank you SO SO SO much.

I owe you a drink sir. It’s 5:00 A.M. and this paper is due in a few hours. Five and a half pages out of eight! Tough night oh and screw Marry Shelley and Frankenstein.

in college i made my periods a font size bigger and doing that to all puntuation can add up to 1/4 to a page and teacher will NEVER know

I have two 12-15 page research essays due in the same week and this post just saved my life. I never would’ve thought of changing the line spacing from 2.0 to 2.1, but it added about another page length to what I’d already typed. Bless you.

ERMERGERD these pointers helped out sooo much I absolutely hate typing term papers for my class and this helps out a bunch THANKS A MILLION.

praise the man, you are the new black baby jesus. bruh, you are my sunshine on a cloudy day, I am your loyal friend to the ends of the fiery underworld, all of the twinkies shall be yours. may your palm tree forever sway high.

This…I…well, thank you, brother. This is the greatest comment I have ever received. I feel giddy.

Hey, I’m a TA and when I have to grade lab reports, I always select all and change to 12pt times new roman even if it looks like it is already, and I check the margins and spacing. I don’t actually ever have to take points off for length, just check to make sure that the essay has x number of examples of y thing and an explanation for each. Be careful because I know a few of the English TAs do that to all the papers before the prof. grades them if the TAs aren’t grading.

thank you sooo much you just saved my English grade and my date that was depending on my English grade. you are the best person ever I love you!!!

3 page assignment due by the end of tomorrow, and had really hit my limit at around 2 1/2 pages of B.S’ing. You’re the real MVP tonight.

Go to the Font Dialog box (Ctrl+D) and under character spacing change from normal to expanded very subtle but gives you a couple lines

I love you.

You are amazing, this helped me so much, Thank you

i literally used to use all of these in high school, i just wish i could have found this page instead of having to figure it out on my own

If your page is a little too long, try changing the font to Garamond, it looks the same as Time New Roman, but is smaller

Are you married? If not, I’d totally marry you for this advice. Thank you so much, brilliant person!

For me I had a required 12 point font size but if you type in a 12.5 point font size the it really helps without being too noticeable on a printed copy.

Another good tip is to change the font color to grey instead of black (on the printed papers) This is a good tip because it will make the words pop off the page less, and therefore the teacher will have a harder time reading what you wrote. This is also good because if your teacher magically notices your letters are the wrong shade, you can blame it on your printer.

There’s something so rewarding about sitting here screwing with margins, spacing, adding random and pointless space lines to the header, and going through the entire paper making every blessed period 14 pt font until the paper is long enough. Thank you so much for the tips!

Arial looks to be larger than Times New Roman and is a standard looking font

Useful… very useful… although I turn my work in electronically, my teacher allows this stuff, because he used this kind of thing in school

there is a font on 2013 word called verdena, its like calibra but a little bigger. changing all of the periods to size 16 is very useful too

Another tip-increase the size of periods, commas, apostrophes etc. Ex if I’m typing in 12 size font, I increase the size for periods, commas etc to size 14.

Another thing that might help is to have more paragraph breaks.

Thxs so much man ur a life saver! 2.1 Is the best spacing and so hard for my teachers to notice

Thank You… Thank You Very Much.

Another good way to increase the amount of writing without actually writing more is to mess around with widow-orphan controls (Under line-spacing options). You can set it so that if you write a paragraph with one word on the next page, it’ll put another line on that page to make the one word less lonely. That can add at least a half-page if you work it right.

This is so helpful!

Awesome. Better tip – Courier font is the biggest font and still passes as acceptable on essays. Check it out, I promise.

You just made my 15 page paper much more delightful. AP classes in high school are an absolute pain! 🙂

Another way to make your paper longer is to double space between sentences. Not the double space between the lines, but in between the sentences double click the space bar. It’s what I’m doing right now and you might not have noticed until I told you.

Its 2016, I’m exhausted, and I had to crank out 12 pages. You may not even read this comment. But you are a true American Hero. If you are ever in the state of Michigan (particularly the lower peninsula), I will purchase you a beverage. Infinitely grateful. Best of luck to you, sir!

THIS HELPED SO MUCH WITH MY 30 PG ESSAY

Verdana seems to be the largest proper looking font I’ve seen so far. I highly recommend it.

The thing i do the most to make a paper longer if specifics are required is 2 spaces after the periods. depending on the length of the paper it can add half a page or more. I wrote a 75 page paper over the summer, with every detail specified, except nothing about spaces between sentences. 69 with one space, 72 with 2.

This just saved my life. English 1101 is going to be the death of me….can’t wait for next semester.

OMG. Heart u! My teacher says she knows a font near identical Times N Roman, but a teeny bit wider, so it makes 3 pages 3.5 pgs. Any Ideas?

Also, changing the file type to a pdf if you have to turn it in electronically will confuse the hell out of most english/humanities teachers to the point where they’ll never discover a 2.3 spacing change in between paragraphs

http://cdn1.thecomeback.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/94/2015/02/Screen-Shot-2015-02-19-at-11.56.00-AM.png You the real MVP

Not a typical trick but if it is permitted use Chicago style citations (or any footnote based citation style… if any others exist). While it does not technically add to the length of an essay as references do not count the lines upon lines of footnotes can add pages upon pages to an essay. At certain points I have literally had half the page just be lines of footnotes. While it obviously adds nothing it does provide the illusion of a lot more going on, especially if it is something you have to print out. Plus you know it looks better, is easier to read, and makes paraphrasing a breeze.

I use the Courier New font. It is by FAR the best font, not only because it looks cool, but because it is MEGA HUGE. It saved me a TON of space on my English Essay. My teacher passes it because it is an “adequate font” and “not a fancy, hand-writing-type font.”

If your essay is to be turned in digitally, there is an extremely underhanded tactic that can be used to increase word/character count. Turn the font color to white, then place random periods in your essay. This will cause the character count to go up, and is almost impossible to detect unless it is being actively searched for.

This man has saved me on around 50 essays and will continue saving me. Tank you Jacob Binstein.

Thx sooo much!!

Thank you so much! This is very helpful:) Xx Ali

THX SO MUCH!!!!

Oh my god thank you so much

Another cool trick is to use the replace all tool to change just the punctuation from size 12 to size 14 fonts.

I have a 2-page essay due in 9 days and I can’t include pictures or sites in the length. This will help a lot. Thanks!

wow this actually really helped with my paper. thanks so much but I wish I found this a few years ago.

this saved my aSS LAST YEARRRR

THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH

thIS SAVED ME LAST YEAR THANK YOU SO MUCH BRO

Thank you, so much man you are so amazing btw a really good font that you can use is courier new and it makes it look good and takes up a lot of space just saying think about using it.

Merriweather is bigger than all of your fonts.

Cambria looks exactly like Times New Roman but is slightly larger which will make it still look like it is in MLA format

A G I W Y A (a genius is what you are)

Nice job! thank you!

Thank you!! I am bolding the periods and changing the line spacing!! Helped so much! <3

Thanks, bro. More like Jacob Einstien bro. Heck yeah, man.

Hi, I’m a college instructor, and we know all these tricks. Some of them I deduct points for. Others I will return an essay ungraded for. You know what is an even better idea? Write to the actual demands of the assignment.

Or don’t, but ooh I hope you end up in my class.

Some instructors know some of these tricks. But it would be a far cry to say that all instructors look for all of these.

You know what’s an even better idea than searching out articles which, to you, are apparently irrelevant? Writing assignment instructions which don’t require an exact number of words.

Good Job Jim! Congrats on killing the creativity of the nation and forcing students to suffer through your class by making them meet arbitrary standards that teach them to use fluffy jargon instead of clear concise points! Pat yourself on the back Jim!

You can also hit enter a couple times in the header sections, which effectively makes each page start a couple lines farther down.

Thx this is a great advice. I have to write a paper for civics and i will totally use this!!!!!! 🙂 😉

Lol that professor’s comment cracked me up Thx for the laughs.

Some of the best advice I have ever received on increasing page length of an essay, is to go through each paragraph, and try to find a way to add words so that the last line just barely word-wraps.

What I mean is that the last line of each paragraph should have only 1 or 2 words. This makes a huge difference, especially if you have a lot of paragraphs.

I don’t think I’ll worry about my teacher noticing any of these tricks since when I asked him if he wanted the paper in MLA, he asked what MLA was… Thanks for this!

any one here in 2019?? Oh and thks

Courier New is way bigger that Algerian.

the font “Press Start 2p” is the largest font for Google Docs

I just finished a 20-page paper for a test and this has really helped. One other thing I recommend is adding a space before and after each paragraph. Press Ctrl+A to select everything, then add a space before and after each paragraph to get every paragraph.

I’m on week 8 of procrastinating and have a paper due in 5 days. These tips helped! Thanks so much 🙂

bro your a genius i got a A on my book report

Im on page 9 of a 10 page essay and I was wondering if I change the font size from 12 to 12.5, would it be too noticeable? It adds length, i’m just hoping my professor and TurnItIn won’t detect it.

Thank you so much! Ur a Lifesaver!

This is so funny, looking at all the comments they are either written really late at night or super early in the morning hahaha.

This is genius! They didn’t tell me anything about margins, so I changed it!

fuckin genius, bro

*adds yours name to ‘list of fckin geniuses’*

i just realised one more thing that can help— use the REALLY REALLY long dashes instead of colons or semicolons. It takes more space and though it’ll barely make a difference, im so proud of thinking of that myself

It has been 10 years, and we are all still struggling with essays.

the biggest font is actually roboto mono

My teacher only said 1 page size thirteen and what it had to be about. thank you

Hey! Nice article. I agree with you that choosing the right font and font size is very essential. Your content contains different valid points and is very beneficial for all designers. Thanks.

ooooh thanks for the advice!

don’t forget typing random words and making them white

thanks for the advice

MY ass is saved It’s almost 8pm and i have an english 5 pg essay to write. A Geography 5 page essay to write and presentation. And 20 lessons of calculus to get done before tomorow morning.

Grammar is another way to lengthen essays. Don’t use contractions, for one thing, use the definition of a big word instead of the big word itself (e.g. use ‘ it was of little value or importance’ instead of ‘it was trivial.’ Lengthens word count and takes up more space on the page.

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The 12 Most Readable Fonts for Print, Hands Down

by GetPublished | May 24, 2021 | Blog

Table of Contents

Have you ever experienced a frustrating font fiasco? This unfortunate event occurs when you sit down to devour a much-anticipated new book, but within a few pages, find yourself exhausted. This may even be so irksome that you give up on the book altogether. Sadly, either an editor or a self-published author simply selected the wrong font when designing and formatting the book’s interior matter.

As droll a topic as fonts might appear initially, font selection is actually a critical decision that can have an outsized impact on the ultimate success of your book. The right font choice will not only make your book more consumable, but will also be better aligned with the genre, the book’s tone, and your audience. Continue reading to discover the most readable fonts for print.

What to Look for When Selecting a Font for Print

To even begin to understand the 32,000 fonts available, it helps to know how fonts are categorized. Fonts generally fall into one of four categories:

• Serif. Serif fonts have nearly indecipherable little flourishes (serifs) on the letters that make them easy to read as they closely resemble handwriting.
• Sans-Serif. “Sans” means without, so these fonts feature simplified, clean letters.
• Script. Script fonts are exactly that — fonts that emulate cursive writing.
• Display. Display fonts are highly artistic and stylized, perfect for headings or titles but not appropriate for large blocks of text.

Consider the following items when deciding on the best fonts for your self-published book:

• Readability. The most readable fonts for print are those that look best in a large block of text. Selecting the easiest fonts to read leads to a much higher likelihood that your book will be read in its entirety and may even result in more positive reader reviews.
• Audience. Some fonts are more familiar and comfortable among people of different generations. If you are older, but your target audience is millennials or Gen Y, then you will want to avoid fonts that are perceived as dated or even medieval.
• Suitable to topic. Fonts have personalities. They can feel whimsical, dramatic, serious, or comedic in tone. Be sure to pair the font that best suits the genre or subject portrayed in your self-published book.
• Visual aesthetics. While the aesthetic value desired for your book is highly subjective, it is wise to consider if your personal tastes are going to resonate well with your target audience. It might be a good idea to ask a few friends to weigh in on your top contender font choices before making the final selections.

There are plenty of factors that play into choosing the most readable fonts for print, so consider hiring font extraordinaires like the team at Gatekeeper Press for your printing needs.

The Best, Reader-Approved Fonts for Books

When you arrive at the formatting stage for your self-published book, take the time to properly explore the fonts or typeface that are best suited for it. Compare three or four fonts by printing out large blocks of text in each font. As you compare the samples, consider which of them are the most readable fonts for print.

Ask yourself if your eyes are pleased with the font and if the font exudes the right vibe for your self-published book and its target audience. Out of these runners up, pick your winner, plus a second complementary font for chapter titles, title page, and sub-texts. Ideally, your book will utilize one strong serif and one strong sans-serif for the majority of the interior matter.

The best fonts for books include:

Serif Fonts

• Garamond. This graceful font was developed in France in the 16th century and has a classical feel.
• Georgia. This elegant yet sturdy font was designed in 1993 and is also the best font for small print.
• Palantino. This font, released in 1949, is reminiscent of the old-style typeface. Released in 1949.
• Caslon. This font was designed by William Caslon in the 18th century and has a somewhat textured appearance.
• Minion Pro. Considered some of the most readable fonts for print, the Renaissance-inspired font series from the Adobe family was designed in 1989.
• Merriweather. This font has a strong, dependable feel and is easy to read.

Sans-Serif Fonts

• Helvetica Neue. This bold font is an excellent choice for chapter titles.
• Myriad. This versatile, humanist, and general-purpose font was developed in the 1990s for Adobe.
• Open Sans. Although a sans-serif font, Open Sans pays homage to certain elements of serif styles.
• Roboto. This clear and concise font is quite versatile.

For perfect font selection and formatting, hire the professional and experienced design team at Gatekeeper Press.

Trust the Design Team at Gatekeeper Press

If the sheer number of available fonts is enough to make your head spin, why not partner with the design team at Gatekeeper Press ? These publishing pros will select the perfect fonts for your book’s genre and audience, in addition to being the most readable fonts for print. Give Gatekeeper Press a call today!

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Here's A Font That Lets You Cheat On Your Term Papers

It's called Times Newer Roman and it looks like a teacher-approved font — just, uh, bigger.

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Good news for lazy college students (hey, high schoolers and grad students, too) or anyone who just enjoys doing less than they should: There's a new font to help you cheat* the page count for your term papers.

It's called "times newer roman" and it looks like the classic times new roman font — it's just...a little bit bigger..

No need to stealthily widen the margins, add extra spaces after periods, or make the punctuation a bigger font size. This new font just makes things take up more space on the page.

This could actually save you a lot of work. To end up with a 15-page, single-spaced Word doc in 12-point font, you could type about 850 words LESS with this font than you would while using traditional Times New Roman.** That's a lot more time for checking Instagram instead of doing boring school work!

Sure, people have been finding hacks to stretch out their school papers since the Gutenberg Bible (I'm assuming, right?). No more!

Gabe Whaley, of the digital product agency MSCHF , told BuzzFeed News he was inspired to make this by being a procrastinator as a student himself. "In a way, this is also a statement about the discrepancy between how school sets you up for life afterwards. In real life, brevity is king, and being able to articulate clear thoughts in fewer words is powerful," he said. (Whaley is a former non-editorial BuzzFeed employee.)

But this also only works if you're printing a paper out. If you email a Word document to your professor using this font, and your professor doesn't have Times Newer Roman on their computer (which they probably won't) it will just show up as regular Times New Roman on their version of Word while they're looking at it.

To download the font, go here .

*BuzzFeed News does not actually endorse cheating on your school assignments. Do your work, kids — you're paying for that education!

**BuzzFeed News takes no responsibility if you are dumb enough to try this and your teacher catches you and flunks you.

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19 brilliant resume fonts that make a real impact

These fonts will elevate your resume.

The font you choose for your resume sets the tone for your entire first impression on a potential employer. This is why you should never overlook the importance of design when it comes to your resume. A good impression isn’t just about content; it’s also about presentation, and like it or not; people unconsciously read into every single detail. Font is no exception.

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the 19 best fonts to use on your resume. There are lots of lists out there on the internet, but we’ve done some serious research and come up with the ultimate list; making this your complete, definitive guide to choosing a font for your CV. For extending your font choices outside of your CV, we also have a list of the best free fonts for designers, as well as a guide to the best free web fonts. And if you've already got the job, it might be time to take a look at the best presentation fonts .

1. Times New Roman

Designed for the British newspaper The Times , Times New Roman was the staple font of the Times font family created by Stanley Morison. At the time he was the art advisor at Monotype, a company founded by Steve Matteson, another notorious font designer. Times New Roman is the standard serif typeface used in professional contexts, especially in British publishing, making it perfect for a classic, traditional touch to your resume.

Similar to Times New Roman but created with thicker lines, Times is a friendlier font to look at while staying in line with the tone of the British newspaper. Times was not, however, always a part of the same font family as Times New Roman. It was first created by Monotype’s competitor, Linotype. However, since a merge between Monotype and Linotype, the font family now named ‘Times’ includes both Times and Times New Roman. For those interested in the traditional elements of Times New Roman and the professionalism of a classic serif font, Times offers your resume a friendlier serif still inkeeping with the traditional feel.

3. Helvetica

Created by Max Meidinger inspired by Greek, German and Swiss designs, Helvetica was bought by Linotype. Given the company’s merge with its competitor, this now makes Helvetica another Monotype font. Helvetica has also always been one of the most commonly used fonts for Lettraset, given its appealing condensed letter spacing and legibility. Almost immediately from its creation, Helvetica quickly became the sans serif font as ubiquitous as the Times family. It would create a modern-looking, sharp resume, as it was designed specifically for legibility and ease of printing, as well as for sharpness on screens.

Often used in body copy on websites, Georgia was popular upon its first release due to its ease of legibility and consistency across both Mac and Windows computers. It was initially published by Microsoft and became so widespread due to its ability to make text legible on low resolutions as well as high. This makes it a safe font choice for a resume, as it means whatever screen or device your resume is opened on and however well or poorly your resume is printed, Georgia ensures one of the highest levels of legibility achieved with a serif font.

5. Baskerville

Named after its creator, Baskerville was originally created in the 1700s and published by Linotype. Now, in the modern day, Monotype owns Baskerville and have created their own updated version. Baskerville is a successful serif font because it combines professionalism and strong legibility with a stylised design, meaning that professional situations – such as your resume – can have an added touch of personal style. With a particularly low x-height and pronounced serifs, Baskerville is often used in professional contexts that require a feminine touch, such as for Penguin, in Vogue and in The New Yorker Magazine . If your resume needs to get across a professional feel as well the style of classic, feminine publishing, Baskerville conveys the message.

Aptos is a divisive font that has sparked arguments between designers recently. A Microsoft typeface created by the founder of Monotype, Aptos was introduced as the new default font in Microsoft Word, replacing Calibri. This turned into a controversial decision, given Calibri’s long reign as the Word standard, but many designers have now given Aptos their blessing. Only created in 2023, it may well become a rival to Helvetica as well as Calibri, as it’s an attractive sans serif typeface with hints of Avenir but with thicker strokes and letters that are far more condensed. Using Aptos for your resume could be an incredibly modern touch and might even show your adaptability to change with the times. Still fresh to many people’s eyes, your potential employer might feel refreshed reading your resume with a clear, standard typeface they don’t recognise as well and haven’t come across on every other resume.

Another font that inherited its name from its designer, Hoefler is the also the name of the designer’s type foundry, Hoefler and Co. One of the first fonts specifically created for digital typography use rather than printing, it is now yet another font acquired by Monotype – a move that is surely by now a signpost of a font's relevance in the design and publishing industry. Hoefler is a dramatic serif typeface, so will give your CV a very stylised look but given its universal nature, will stay in line with the necessary amounts of professionalism.

Arial was created especially for Monotype for use specifically with a printer used at the time, and then quickly became a standard typeface in Windows computers. Arial is now a standard font included in all computers and is above all, a type founded on practicality. Originally created for the process of a specific printer of its time, its strokes are harsh, thick and sharp for efficient printing, and now works perfectly for universal legibility and clarity on screens. A convenience of Arial is its range of variations, including many versions of Arial ‘narrow’ as well as many different 'bold' styles. This makes it a versatile font for your resume as it will cover all bases – it's a fully equipped family ready to create variety in your headings, subheadings and body text, while allowing you to maintain consistency in font throughout your whole resume.

9. Helvetica Neue

Helvetica Neue is a subtly updated version of Helvetica published in the 1980s by the daughter company of Linotype. The more pronounced punctuation marks of Helvetica Neue as well as more consistent x and y heights are both noticeable changes that Helvetica Neue adopted. To the untrained eye, the difference is not too noticeable, but Helvetica Neue qualifies as an equally practical and professional font to use in a resume. It is technically an improved reworking of Helvetica and does boast higher consistency in letter design, so if anything, it might even qualify as a more professional choice than Helvetica.

The 1980s clearly functioned as a font industry boom! Yet another standard sans-serif typeface released in the 1980s by Linotype, Avenir is a clean, modern font that dramatically adjusts any text into a strong, contemporary design. Another popular sans-serif font designed with Swiss typography in mind, its lightweight, rounded letters create a refined look that depicts an unusual, future-focussed design. Avenir is a standard typeface that is safely professional but not too commonly used on resumes due to its contemporary feel. It's a choice you’ve got to be certain about, but if you are, it should perfectly depict your personality and will stand out from the rest of the stack.

11. Belgiano Serif

Belgiano Serif is probably the least commonly used font on this list, given its publication by a much smaller company and the fact that its most prominent source for downloading is via DaFonts, but I believe it’s a typeface that is very overlooked and needs a more significant platform. Possibly one of the most feminine serif font out there that still maintains professionalism, its serifs are extremely pronounced and make for a distinctive look. On your resume it might fare well to simply use it for headings, but it’s a less commonly seen touch that adds connotations of old-school New York publishing and old-fashioned feminine publications. It’s not a font that comes as a standard in either Microsoft or Apple , so it’s worth downloading to use for your own personal touch of elegance on your resume.

Didot is an old font created by a French printer and publisher and used in the company's own books, with its lettering becoming the most infamous part of the company's legacy that has stood the test of time. The lighter strokes of Didot are just distinguishable enough to cut an elegant typeface reminiscent of when books were designed by hand pre-digital-age. It is a timeless font now, and was a contemporary and forward-focussed typeface for its time of creation, the 1700s. Its serifs are not as dramatically pronounced as a font like Belgiano Serif, making it a practical serif choice for a resume, but it also combines thicker and lighter strokes that keep its classic, timeless origination in mind.

13. Microsoft Sans Serif

Similarities between Microsoft Sans Serif and Aptos can be easily drawn in its thinner, straight strokes and low contrast between the x and y-heights. Given its use for the same company, it’s highly likely that Microsoft Sans Serif is where some of Aptos’s inspiration was drawn. If you’re looking for an easy sans-serif font that is slightly different to Helvetica but still covers all the same bases, Microsoft Sans Serif has got you covered.

Popular in the use of editorial graphic design, Futura has also been used in many iconic brand logos. You may be surprised to realise how often you’ve stumbled across Futura without realising it, which proves just how versatile it is as a font that can be redesigned, updated and stylised into something so specific that it’s not recognisable next to a different design that might also be using Futura. It was even used on a sign planted on the moon during the first landing and is still there today. If you’re looking to get a bit more creative with your resume but want a professional font as a safe baseline to start from, Futura gives you enough space to create something completely new and as something so widely and significantly used, will always be welcome to the eyes. It’s far friendlier than the standard sans serif fonts too, with extremely rounded letters, a high contrast between the x and y-heights, and occasional stylised touches such as the art-deco-esque curve of the uppercase ‘B’. It was created with Bauhaus design of the time in mind and published by the Bauer Type Foundry, but is now owned by Monotype, who have since published their own updated version, ‘Futura Now’.

15. Garamond

Often used in book publishing as a serif font made up of strokes of consistent thicknesses with dignified, subtle serifs, Garamond was created by a French engraver of the same name in the 1700s. It was created at a moment in time when reading was very gradually becoming distributed to more people and publishers were moving away from Gothic typefaces and towards Roman letters instead, Garamond being one of them. Garamond’s best quality is its agreeable spacing, one of its legible qualities that make it so widely used in book publishing. If you’re handing someone your resume in person, Garamond serves as one of the best options, as it is known as one of the best serif fonts to use in print, and has been respected as one of the best printed typefaces for centuries. Garamond is understated but traditional, and would add a very dignified and book-ish touch to a resume, especially for one that's directed towards the printing, publishing or teaching industries.

Butler was inspired by the roman font reminiscent of Gothic type features, Bodoni, with one of many differences including Butler’s inclusiveness of both lowercase and uppercase letters. Created as recently as 2015 and freely available, it is not yet a standard serif font, but is used by many and is gaining popularity as an elegant serif font with dramatic contrast in stroke thicknesses throughout each letter. With such dramatic contrast in strokes, it would work well as a distinctive header or sub-header. It does however come in 14 weights, meaning that it’s flexible enough to be used across your entire resume. It’s a neat font with subtler serifs than Belgiano Serif, so would come across as incredibly professional, and as it’s not as commonly used as some of the others on this list, would stand out from the crowd and give you a signature style.

17. Charter

Charter is another font designed to read well on screens with lower resolutions, and its designer, Matthew Carter, holds the title of CBE for all of his significant font creations and contributions to the world. The serifs of Charter are blunted, and the x and y-heights are fairly close together, making it a squarer typeface that works especially well for use in body text both in printing and on screens. A standard font included in most softwares and computers, Charter is a sturdy-looking font that creates solid, consistent text. When used in resumes, it prides itself most on its legibility and the feeling of reliability its squareness and blunt serifs create.

Cochin is probably one of the thinnest serif fonts made up of consistent strokes rather than strokes of contrasting thicknesses. Its French origins are apparent in its tasteful serifs and very rounded letters that create an illusion of larger spacing than usual. All these features make Cochin a dignified font that will help your resume to appear refined, thought-out and beautifully presented. It’s a strong serif but sophisticated. It also does not take up too much space, so if you’re looking for a serif typeface that fits more on one page, Cochin is the right choice.

19. Calibri

Calibri is not always a popular choice, but up until recently it was the default font used in Word, so its universal origins cannot be ignored. The Microsoft sans serif font is nothing if not understated so is used as the default for many professional situations. According to Wired, in 2023 the US Department of State even threw out the classic serif font Times New Roman to assign Calibri in its place as their default font. Arguably, there is no font choice more secure to use for your resume than the typeface professional enough for the US Department of State.

Want to use more than one font? See our guide to font pairing .

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Mabel is a freelance writer, artist and filmmaker. When she's not writing about the arts industry, books or culture, she's working on writing and illustrating her stories or developing experimental filmmaking projects. Working in journalism, poetry, documentary-filmmaking, illustration and fiction, storytelling is at the heart of what she does. She started writing articles in online magazines when she was seventeen. After training at the BFI Academy and then studying at UAL, she is now continuing to write articles while she works on creating and launching her first books and films.

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• Enhance Your Editorial Designs with the 9+ Best Newspaper Fonts

If you’re searching for the best newspaper fonts, you’ve come to the right place!

Selecting the perfect font for a newspaper requires careful consideration. The right font can evoke the desired emotion and enhance readability, ensuring that the reader engages with the content effortlessly.

Newspaper fonts play a critical role in how the information is perceived. A well-chosen font can make headlines stand out and body text easy to read, maintaining the reader’s interest throughout the paper.

To help you achieve this, we’ve curated a list of the best newspaper fonts. Whether you’re aiming for a classic, authoritative look or a modern, clean feel, these fonts will elevate your design and convey your message with impact.

Unlimited Downloads Of 15+ Million : FONTS & GRAPHICS

Best Newspaper Fonts Collections : Image Credit - Envato Elements

1. Unblocker – Headline Font

Unblocker is a fascinating and dynamic headline typeface with a commanding presence and timeless elegance. Unblocker emanates a bold personality that draws the eye and demands attention. Each letter strikes a perfect blend of boldness and finesse. The finely weighted strokes offer a sense of stability, making it an excellent choice for imposing headlines, titles, and banners that need to make an impact.

The distinct personality of Unblocker is ideal for a wide range of applications, from magazine layouts to branding collateral. Its intrinsic versatility allows it to mix in with a variety of design aesthetics, effectively improving the visual appeal of your projects. Unblocker provides you with a distinctive and bold typographic choice whether you’re making a magazine cover, a logo, or eye-catching posters.

This typeface is perfect for headline design, newspaper layout, magazine cover, book cover, elegant logos, branding, packaging products, quotes, or simply as a stylish text overlay to any background image.

2. Firecracker – Vintage Typeface

Firecracker is a captivating vintage typeface that captures the vibrant spirit of the 1950s and 1960s. This typeface brings a nostalgic flair to your designs, making it ideal for magazines, newspapers, signage, branding, and packaging. Firecracker’s stylish characters add a touch of retro charm to any project.

Available in both regular and oblique styles, Firecracker offers versatility and timeless appeal. With this typeface, you can effortlessly transport your audience back in time and create designs that are both nostalgic and eye-catching.

3. Milthen Sans Pro Font

Milthen Sans Pro is a redesigned sans-serif font that offers a modern twist on the classic style of 1980s newspaper fonts. This typeface includes both uppercase and lowercase characters, making it versatile for a wide range of design projects such as logos, labels, flyers, brochures, signage, and branding.

Milthen Sans Pro is known for its strong and dynamic appearance, adding a professional touch to any design. The font supports multilingual characters and is available in OTF, TTF, WOFF, and WOFF2 formats. Ideal for modern style projects, this typeface is perfect for creating impactful and stylish visual content.

4. Paper Grunge – Ripped & Sport Font

Paper Grunge is a bold and authentic display font, perfect for adding a gritty, dynamic touch to any project. Ideal for posters, logos, and sports-themed designs, this typeface stands out in a variety of contexts. Its ripped and rugged style brings a unique edge to branding efforts, making it a versatile choice for creative professionals.

Included formats are OTF, TTF, and WOFF, ensuring compatibility with a wide range of design software and applications. Whether you’re aiming for a bold headline or a striking logo, Paper Grunge delivers a distinctive and powerful look.

5. Kilograph Font

Kilograph is a bold, condensed typeface that makes a powerful statement. Perfect for branding projects and editorial headlines, Kilograph delivers a strong visual impact that commands attention. Its clean lines and condensed form make it ideal for creating striking titles and standout headlines.

This font package includes OTF, TTF, WOFF, and WOFF2 formats, ensuring versatility across various design platforms. Kilograph features both uppercase and lowercase characters, punctuation, numbers, and ligatures, providing a comprehensive toolkit for all your design needs.

6. Wilson Wells – Blackletter Font

Wilson Wells is a unique blackletter decorative font, perfect for adding a gothic touch to various design projects. Its striking style makes it suitable for gothic lettering, tattoos, headlines, posters, magazines, newspapers, t-shirts, labels, and more.

Wilson Wells comes with TTF, OTF, and WOFF formats, and features stylistic alternates, ligatures, uppercase and lowercase letters, numbering, punctuations, and multilingual support. It works seamlessly on both PC and Mac, with easy installation and compatibility with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and even Microsoft Word.

Add a dramatic flair to your designs with Wilson Wells, a font that truly stands out.

EXPLORE 400,000+ FONTS & DESIGN TOOLS WITH UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS!

Discover Limitless Design Options: Envato Elements Offers 14 Million+ Fonts and Design Elements on Monthly Subscription!

7. Brigovin – Luxury Script Font

Brigovin is an elegant script font ideal for a variety of sophisticated design projects. Its refined appearance makes it perfect for logos, branding, invitations, stationery, wedding designs, social media posts, and more.

Brigovin is PUA encoded, ensuring easy access to all glyphs and special characters. This font features uppercase and lowercase letters, alternate characters, numbers, punctuation, and multilingual support. It includes TTF, OTF, and WOFF file formats, providing versatility for different design applications.

Enhance your designs with the luxurious and elegant touch of Brigovin.

8. Robinson Corroded Font

Robinson Corroded is a bold typeface inspired by vintage newspaper titles. Its corroded design adds a unique, weathered look, perfect for creating eye-catching headlines. Ideal for magazines, posters, and any project that requires a strong and attractive title font, Robinson Corroded combines vintage aesthetics with a modern edge.

Features include uppercase and lowercase letters, punctuation, and multilingual support, available in TTF, OTF, and WOFF formats. Add a touch of vintage charm to your designs with Robinson Corroded.

9. Angel Rhapsody – Blackletter Font

Angel Rhapsody is a unique blackletter decorative font, perfect for adding a striking, gothic touch to various projects. Whether it’s gothic lettering, tattoos, headlines, posters, magazines, newspapers, t-shirts, or labels, this font ensures a captivating look.

• Formats: TTF, OTF, WOFF
• Includes alternates and ligatures
• Uppercase and lowercase letters
• Numbering and punctuations
• Multilingual support
• Compatible with PC and Mac
• Simple installation
• Works with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and Microsoft Word

Enhance your designs with the distinctive style of Angel Rhapsody.

Categories: Designers Fonts

Amiya Nandy

Amiya here. I assist business owners in increasing their clientele using the top web-based tools and applications. I work as an online marketer and have a background in digital business. I have been doing this for over 7 years. I discuss the top software and how to manage an online digital business. I have a strong desire to see others succeed, and I really believe that the correct equipment and software can go a long way.

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Best Fonts For Logos: Top 30 Design Choices

• November 6, 2023
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Logo design plays a major role when analyzing brands that have made a significant impact on the market and in the minds of people. Designing a logo is as crucial as launching a product for your business. However, choosing the right font for the logo design can be another hectic task.

Modern logo fonts are significant in contemporary design, conveying innovation and a clean aesthetic that contrasts with classic fonts.

Why do graphic designers stress the importance of choosing a professional logo that works best for your brand?

• Statistics show that 93% of consumers trust a brand or company with a logo that’s clean and professional
• Other studies show that font alone accounts for 40% of a logo’s impression on viewers.
• Creating your logo with an eye-catching and neat font can work wonders for your brand.

So, fonts do play an important role, whether you’re starting a business or have already achieved success. Fonts in your logo design help with branding, and choosing the right one elevates your presence in the market.

Table of Contents

In this article, we will look into 📝

What is a logo font and types of logo fonts, serif fonts, sans-serif fonts, script fonts, display fonts, brand identity, target market, legibility & scalability, minimalistic designs, 2. proximo nova, 5. helvetica, 7. garamond, 8. avant garde, 9. gill sans, 10. univers, 11. choplin, 12. centrio, 14. sassoon, 15. brando grotesque, 16. open sans, 18. rockwell, 20. sanchez, 22.  ff meta, 23. neue swift, 25. horizon, 28. quiche sans, personal opinion:.

• Understanding Logo Fonts: Here, I’ve included a brief paragraph explaining typefaces that are used for logos and different types of logo fonts that will help you decide which logo font to choose.
• How to choose a logo font: I’ve also given a small guide to personally help you choose a logo font that matches your brand’s vision and identity.
• Top 30 best logo fonts : I have surfed through a lot of parts of the web to finalize the top 30 best fonts for logos and all the information related to typography.

Not sure which font you want your logo to be?  I’ve gathered around 30 fonts for you to become an expert in logo fonts or fonts. From finding the perfect logo fonts to downloading free fonts, we’ve got it all covered.

Imagine your brand identity is about power and professionalism. Using a script logo font for your business would never convey the message. Instead, when you use a different font, like a sans serif display font, it can make a big difference in the way consumers perceive your identity.

Fonts fall under typography , justifying the fact that it’s indeed tricky. However, once you grasp the basics, you can easily incorporate typographic rules into your design elements. Different fonts evoke distinct emotions , and we perceive them differently. There are essentially four categories of logo font, where you can begin your search for the perfect font for your brand. Exploring different types of logos can help you determine the visual identity that aligns best with your business values and message.

Geometric sans serif fonts, such as Akzidenz-Grotesk and Avenir, have had a significant impact on design and branding from the early 20th century to contemporary applications. These typefaces exemplify the historical significance and enduring appeal of geometric sans serif fonts.

Still confused?

Typography is the art of arranging letters in a specific way so that a normal human eye can read them without any confusion.

Font category refers to categorizing fonts based on their design, style, shape, and size similarities.

Comment by u/apathyzeal from discussion in typography

A typeface is a family of fonts where characters and glyphs are grouped together and share the same design. Fonts are the individual characters found within a typeface. Each typeface can have fonts with different styles

Basically, all you need to know is that there are four types of logo fonts, or you can view it as there being four font categories from which you can select a font or a typeface that matches your brand’s vision.

The oldest and eternal type of font among the four serif logo fonts are characterized by the small strokes or tails at the end of each letter. Serif logo fonts are associated with tradition, elegance, and reliability, often favored by prestigious brands. It has been around for 200 years, and most brands prefer this font as it exudes a trustworthy logo font style, evoking credibility and a timeless feel.

‘Serif’ means dash or line, representing the extending features of the letter ends. They are typically designed for longer forms of content because it’s believed that serifs help the eyes read content faster in print. Most newspapers still use serifs, even in 2023. There are many fonts available under this typeface. The most popular serifs are Times New Roman, Georgia, and Baskerville.

Sans serif font is a typeface that doesn’t have ‘serifs,’ meaning the letters in this typeface lack the usual tails, extensions, or lines at their ends. Sans means without, so sans serif fonts are characterized by clean fonts with no decorative strokes in their letters. This absence of serifs gives the letters lower stroke contrast compared to serif font. However, sans serif styles have fewer stroke width variations but high x-height, shorter descenders, and ascenders. A modern sans serif font is known for its clean, simple lines and versatility, making it a popular choice for branding, logo design, and digital applications.

The best logo fonts come from this family of fonts. They feature more geometric letters, making them easy to read on screens and making the font suitable for creating logos and merchandise design. Sans serif logo fonts are particularly appealing for their minimalistic and straightforward design, making them ideal for online brands due to their excellent screen readability.

The script font typeface imitates calligraphy and handwritten fonts, giving it a decorative appearance. The letters are not geometric but resemble traditional cursive handwriting . They have flowing and connected letterforms, including ligatures and textures, feature elegant and decorative elements, lack serifs, and exhibit variations in stroke weights to mimic natural handwriting . Homegrown brands particularly favor script fonts when aiming for a friendly and approachable image with customers.

These fonts showcase elegance and style with a modern touch in logo designs. They are widely known for their playful and casual personality, characterized by strokes called swashes defined by curls and letter extensions.

Display logo fonts are a diverse category suitable for both short and long-term content. They are designed to grab attention, make content stand out, and ensure easy readability. This modern logo font category perfectly defines the fonts ideal for logo designs, enabling them to make a strong statement.

These fonts come in various styles, such as decorative, elegant, modern, and bold. While they are unsuitable for lengthy body copy due to their lack of clarity, they are highly preferred by brands for headlines, logos, branding, and advertisements.

How To Choose A Logo Font

I guess now you have an idea about which font category your logo should be from. Before you choose a logo font, consider a few factors. Here’s a pro tip: when thinking about how many fonts to use in your logo, remember that no more than two fonts should be utilized. This helps maintain a cohesive and visually pleasing design, avoiding a cluttered and overwhelming appearance. Some brands utilize different fonts from various categories to make the logo unique and beautiful.

Comment by u/addaydreamer from discussion in typography

Before deciding on which font to use, always remember the following things when considering your business.

There are different types of logos where the logo clearly communicates the brand theme to customers. Use your brand’s personality as a reference before proceeding further with a font. What is the idea behind the business? Does your logo font reflect the purpose of your business? The main aim is to create a logo that reinforces the message of your brand to the audience, and one way to do so is by selecting the right kind of font that suits the external personality.

Choose a serif font if your brand exudes sophistication and class. Opt for a sans-serif for a modern and forward-thinking vibe. If your brand is warm, personal, and friendly, a script font suits you well. For a unique and edgy brand, go for a display font.

It’s easy and similar to movie logos, where the font communicates the movie’s theme to the audience. Ensure your brand personality shines through with your font choice.

Always consider your target market. Align your logo with your customers’ needs by identifying and analyzing your target audience. For example, if you’re a law firm, choose a mature or traditional logo font to convey trust and experience.

On the other hand, if you’re a homegrown soap brand, opt for a cool logo font to make your brand approachable. Tailoring your logo font selection according to your customer’s needs and values can be beneficial for your brand’s future.

Why do the brands emphasize and prioritize legibility in their logo design? Because if the fonts used for the logo aren’t readable, what’s the point? Creating a unique font logo can make the brand stand out, but what if it’s not readable when shrunk to a small size? Another factor to consider is scalability.

Comment by u/Cutie_Suzuki from discussion in graphic_design

If the brand logo is not legible on small business cards, you must choose a font that considers the logo’s scalability. Your logo will be used on various designs, from billboards to email letters and print advertisements.

Here are some personal tips to strike a balance between legibility and scalability:

• Understand the basics of visual hierarchy , ensuring alignment between letter spacing, color, and font.

• Pair a thin font with a monogram or symbol. If the font can’t be scaled well, you can rely on the logo symbol or monogram.

• Use scripted logo fonts sparingly. They might lose legibility when shrunk to small sizes. Maintain spacing between scripted letters and increase the x-height of letters. Avoid going all caps with the script font.

• Consider color combinations carefully. Light-colored text on a light background can strain the eyes. Opt for contrasting colors to ensure readability and catch the viewer’s attention.

Lastly, focus on minimalistic designs for your logo. Prioritizing color should come second because color might not be available on all mediums. Minimalist designs tend to capture the attention of your audience. If you observe the most successful brands like Apple, Samsung, Nike, Target, and more, their logo designs are simple yet striking. As mentioned before, always stick to one or two fonts for your logo. If you overcomplicate it, the logo can feel cluttered and less attractive.

Top 30 Best Fonts For Logo Design

Bodoni is a widely used font in logo design and is used by top logos for fashion. It was created by Italian type designer Giambattista Bodoni in the late 18th century. This serif typeface exudes a sense of luxury and timeless charm. It is a popular choice among fashion brands like Zara, Gucci, and Elizabeth Arden. Bodoni has also been used in fashion magazine publications like Harper’s Bazaar and Metropolis.

Modern and geometric, The Proxima Nova font was designed by Mark Simonson in 2005. Its popularity soared, particularly after the introduction of ligatures, enhancing both readability and aesthetic appeal. Brands such as Spotify, Mashable, and Samsung opted for Proxima Nova as their logo font to achieve a modern, edgy appearance. Online platforms like BuzzFeed, Wired, and NBC News also utilized Proxima Nova for their logo design.

Didot has been considered the most fashionable serif for almost 200 years. It is one of the best fonts redesigned by typography designer Adrian Frutiger. The letterforms have high-contrast strokes, vertical stress, and flat serifs.  These features give the font an attractive and luxurious appearance, suitable for fashionable logo typefaces. It remains a trendy font within the design community. You can spot this font from Vogue magazine and clothing brands like Giorgio Armani.

Futura is an all-caps font that was essentially created by Paul Renner in 1927. One of the most popular fonts, Futura, is a beautiful geometric font inspired particularly by circles. It is still considered a modern font even after its introduction 85 years ago. There’s a connection between Dolce and Gabbana, a fashion brand, and Domino’s Pizza. You guessed it right, both these successful brands used Futura for their modern logo design. Other brands like Nike, Volkswagen, and Gillette look professional using the Futura font.

The word ‘ Helvetica’ is derived from ‘Helvetia,’ a Latin term for Switzerland. This perfect logo font was designed by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger in 1957. Helvetica gained significant popularity as numerous brands, including Apple, Adobe, BMW, Microsoft, Panasonic, and Jeep, chose this font for their logo designs.

“Avenir” means “future” in French, reflecting forward-thinking and modernism in graphic designs. The renowned typeface designer Adrian Frutiger also crafted an organic variation of geometric fonts, Avenir, in 1988. This versatile font has been employed by brands like Toyota and AliExpress to convey their message effectively. Its well-balanced letters offer visual appeal, making it a suitable choice for business logos.

Garamond originated in the 16th century by designer Claude Garamond. This free logo font is renowned for its readability and is often considered the most legible font, boasting an authoritative and luxurious appeal.

The font’s timeless versatility has influenced major global brands, leading them to incorporate it into their visual identity, including logos and branding. Garamond clearly conveys tradition, trust, and prestige, making it a favored choice for fashion brands like Rolex and Abercrombie and Fitch.

If you’re seeking a retro logo style, Avant Garde is the font to go for. It’s a bold sans-serif font designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, featuring geometric shapes, sharp angles, and innovative letterforms. This font is best suited for edgy and contemporary brands, such as Adidas and Remax.

Gill Sans , inspired by traditional lettering, was created by Eric Gill in 1928. It’s a modern font known for its high legibility. Popular digital brands such as Pixar and BBC utilize Gill Sans. Fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger also employs this logo typeface to make a bold statement with Gill Sans.

With high readability, the Univers Typeface is the most legible, versatile, and adaptable font. Universe font was a groundbreaking font family designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1954. Univers lends a sense of steadfastness, stability, and forward-thinking vision. You can find this font in the logos of brands like eBay, Unicef, Western Union, and more.

Choplin , a geometric serif designed by René Bieder, is an excellent choice for assertive branding. It’s particularly suitable for magazine and print brands, ensuring your design logo stands out effectively.

For unconventional and modern makeup brands, Centrio , a modern retro font, can be a perfect choice for logos. Ideal for brands that want to convey fun escapism and simplicity in their brand personality, Centrio fonts offer limitless serif customizations.

The Gotham typeface stands out as the most recognizable and timeless font of the last decade. It was designed by Tobias Frere-Jones for Hoefler & Co. in 2000. This font often captures the attention of readers and convinces them of its trustworthiness. Gotham’s letterforms are highly legible and unforgettable. Notable brands that have utilized the Gotham font for their logos, titles, and website content include Discovery, Taco Bell, and DC Comics, among others.

For businesses targeting children or kids, consider the free logo font Sassoon , created in 1995. This sans-serif typeface was initially designed for children’s books, featuring playful swirls and curls in letters. Toystores, children’s clothing shops, and playschools can utilize this font to attract young audiences effectively.

Brandon Grotesque is a captivating and influential font crafted by Hannes von Döhren in 2009. This font is particularly ideal for tech startups, youth-oriented businesses, and lifestyle brands aiming to convey originality and sophistication. Media conglomerate Comedy Central employs this font for its logo due to its clarity, making it work seamlessly on digital screens and in print. The letterforms feature subtle rounded corners and a slightly tilted axis.

Open Sans , a humanist font created by Steve Mattson in 2010, is favored by major brands like Google, Ikea, and WordPress for their logos due to its easy recognition on screens. Its friendly and open appeal makes it perfect for modern and contemporary branding. The rounded shapes of letters such as ‘o,’ ‘e,’ and ‘s’ lend Open Sans a softer and more organic look.

The Minion font was introduced in 1990 as part of the Adobe Systems font family. It’s a nice modern font for logos. Highly legible, it is commonly used for body text in both print and web designs. A prominent example of its use is The New York Times, which extensively employed the Minion font for its rebranding in 2003, including the newspaper’s logo and headlines. Minion can be considered a trustworthy font for logos due to its Renaissance-inspired design, which makes it easy for the eyes to read.

Rockwell is a bold font that emphasizes heavy lines, pushing boundaries. Brands using Rockwell tend to attract audiences with its loud personality, exuding clout and confidence. Due to its thick lines, it’s well-suited for logos but not for long texts. IBM’s iconic logo is a prime example of a brand effectively utilizing Rockwell.

Myriad is a versatile typeface designed by Robert Slimbach and Carl Twombly in 1992. This font is clean and neutral and conveys a minimalistic message, making it ideal for logos. Apple Inc. used Myriad as the brand’s main font for many years. Other popular brands that love this font include Rolls-Royce, Wells Fargo, Walmart, and more.

The letterforms of the Sanchez font exude confidence and attitude, making it ideal for brands with innovative personalities. Part of the Latinotype family, this font offers 12 styles with rounded edges inspired by South American typography. Despite being an underrated font for creative logos, this contemporary font is well-suited for branding

Foco is an excellent choice for your font if your brand targets a youthful audience. The letters are neatly enclosed inside a circle with rounded edges, giving the font an aesthetic and cute appearance. Foco is suitable for logo designs, taglines, and headers, offering a unique option for your brand.

FF Meta can be considered the antithesis of Helvetica. Designed by Spiekermann, FF Meta is more fluid and rounded compared to Helvetica, enhancing readability. This font was especially prominent during the 90s, often referred to as the Helvetica of that era. Brands like Herman Miller and The Weather Channel use this font for their logos.

Brands looking for a logo in financial, health, or non-profit organizations can definitely choose  Neue Swift. The font was designed to guide the eyes in a horizontal flow, making words and lines appear separated for easy reading. This makes the font a popular choice for wordy logos. The typeface features sharp angles and sloping strokes on each letter, creating good spacing between the letters.

Caslon was originally designed by William Caslon I in 1725. In 1990, the font was revitalized by Carol Twombly and is now known as Adobe Caslon. It possesses a traditional yet contemporary charm, maintaining the trustworthy factor for brands when used in logo designs, advertisements, or website content. Many political parties utilize this font to create an attention-grabbing factor, and the University of Virginia uses this font for its logo.

Horizon is a futuristic font with cropped angles and sharp curves. It is inspired by the avant-garde movement and is primarily used in science fiction books, comic brands, and TV series logos. This font can be easily spotted in the Star Trek series; it was initially named Star Trek but later renamed Horizon.

Azedo was named after Pedro Azedo, a Portuguese typeface designer. The minimalist letterforms fascinate you with their charm and neatness. It is among the top fonts for logo design due to its striking, well-balanced, and bold typography.

If your brand is a modern Gen Z urban fashion line, you can consider Urbine for your branding. The font features soft edges and geometric letters, making it popular among graphic designers for logo designs.

Quiche Sans is a perfect font choice for logo design in restaurants, consulting, and personal branding. It adds elegance through its subtle curves and small strokes. The high-contrast letters and striking appearance can grab attention from afar.

30. Cenzo Flare

Cenzo Flare is a typeface designed by Bana Arasanz. Block fonts for logos are currently trending, and Cenzo Flare stands out as the top choice in this category. The design inspiration comes from old American advertisements, resulting in curvy, smooth edges and strong, bold characters. You can design your logo, which is well suited for billboards, advertisements, and building your own corporate identity.

Logo fonts are very easy to choose if you’ve already fixated on a brand vision in your mind. Make sure if you, as a brand, design the logo yourself, always use free licensed fonts and it doesn’t come with any legal issues. You can always connect with services that offer you unlimited graphic design , like Graphically.io . We have professional in-house designers who help you with all kinds of graphic design needs.

Now that you have the top 30 logos, you can start choosing fonts for your own logo needs for your brand.  You can also make logos using a logo maker. However, before making a final decision, it’s important to understand the principles of logo design . Choosing the best font for your brand can significantly impact how your audience perceives and interacts with your brand. So, make sure you’re well-versed in the basics of typography before delving into any branding decisions.

1. Which font looks more professional?

Popular fonts like Helvetica, Times New Roman, Avenir, and Gill Sans tend to exude professionalism and cleanliness. Sans serif typefaces are commonly preferred for professional logos for business, often used to convey modern elegance and luxury while maintaining a brand’s sophistication.

2. Which modern fonts are suitable for logos?

Some modern logo typefaces, such as Bodoni, Futura, Univers, Proxima Nova, Gotham, and Didot, offer a fresh perspective on traditional typographic designs and bring an edge to logo designs. These fonts are widely appreciated and utilized by top brands worldwide and are available for free download.

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