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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.

The Best Fonts for Academic Papers

Traditional choices and their limitations, times new roman : ubiquity and readability vs. overuse.

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7 Best Fonts For University Essays (Teachers Choice)

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Choosing the best font for university essays is really difficult. As a university student, you have to stand out from other students’ academic papers.

What are the best fonts for university essays? Arial and Helvetica sans-serif style is a common font choice among university students. Some universities do have guidelines on their website about what fonts are allowed in academic essays, so make sure to check before you start typing.

The right font can make your paper look more professional and appealing to readers. But it’s hard to find fonts that are both beautiful and easy to read especially when there are thousands of them available online!

Best Fonts will help you easily choose the most suitable font for your project by offering expert suggestions based on your needs and interests.

I’ve dedicated myself to helping students succeed in their studies with our website full of useful tips on how to write an effective essay or research paper, as well as relevant information about different types of fonts (serif, sans serif, script, etc).

Our team consists of experienced writers who also know what it takes to get top grades at universities around the world! So if you need some extra help writing your next academic paper or just want some advice on choosing.

If you are in a hurry! Then you should be considered these quick recommended picks.

UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS: 50+ Million Resume Templates & Design Assets

All the Resume Templates you need and many other design elements, are available for a monthly subscription by subscribing to Envato Elements . The subscription costs $16.50 per month and gives you unlimited access to a massive and growing library of over 50 million items that can be downloaded as often as you need (stock photos too)!

What Are The Best Fonts For University Essays?

Students often use clear sans-serif style Arial, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Calibri fonts on their university academic essays, and some universities have a proper guideline on their website about the fonts that should be used.

But for my academic papers, I’ve been researching on the internet and find these 10 best fonts for university essays that are clear in human eyes and look so professional. Your university professor will love your academic papers and essays after using these fonts.

1. Wensley Modern Serif Font Family (Top Pick)

The font of choice for many university students, Wensley is a modern serif font typeface. If you want to impress your professors with an elegant and professional appearance then this style will be perfect for the job! This font includes non-english characters so it can fit any language perfectly.

Wensley Font

• This font is known as the perfect headline maker.
• Improved readability.
• Available in a variety of weights and styles.
• Fast delivery to your inbox.
• All fonts are 100% licensed, free lifetime support.

2. Madelin Serif Font Family

The font Madeline is a well accepted serif font among the universities and colleges. This high classed font includes all types of non-english characters and basic glyphs, making it perfect for students in academia. If you are a university student then this new typeface will drastically improve your academic papers.

Madelin Font

• Impress your professor with a professional looking paper.
• Make an academic research paper look more interesting and engaging to readers.
• Fonts that are easy to read on screens and in print.
• The best typeface for any design project.
• Be creative with your fonts!
• Unique and exciting typeface
• Can be used in any environment or situation
• Will have your audience drooling over this font
• Curvaceous letters make for an attractive design

3. Glamour Luxury Serif Font Family

Glamour Luxury Serif is a font for those looking to be both stylish and minimalistic. With many variations, it can make your paper stand out from the rest or you can use it on your resume as well!

Glamour Luxury Serif Font Family

The wide variety of options in Glamour Luxury Serif means that students will have an easy time finding this typeface for their institution work while professionals will find just what they need in order to maximize their efficiency at work with its clean design.

• The best way to express yourself on the academic papers
• Increase visibility, increase recognition and get a leg up on competitors
• Make your content stand out with bold fonts that are beautifully designed
• Fonts mixes aesthetics with readability so you can use them unapologetically

4. Adrina Modern Serif Font Family

Adrina is a modern rounded serif font with 3 weights that can be used by creatives and commercial professionals. It also has multilingual support to help university students, adults in the professional world, or anyone who needs it!

Aridina Font

• Give your design a unique touch with our extensive library of stylish fonts
• With over 100 fonts on offer you have an entire world to explore
• Whether it’s for personal or commercial use these typefaces are perfect for all occasions, big and small
• The variety means that there’s something to suit every project – whether it’s formal, laid back or fun.

5. Immani Serif Font Family Pack

Immani serif font is a logos-ready font with a modern, eye-catching serif look! This classy typeface is perfect for including in headings and other text collaborations within your project. With its sleek fonts, you can easily create stylish headlines or any other type of text that will catch the eyes of those all around you. It’s time to stop searching: this font is what you need!

Immani Font

Effortlessly design your next project with FontsTTD Serif TTF Typewriter Font. Including a variety of letter and number characters, as well as an additional 5 ornaments at each.

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• You will be able to combine both Font Weight Regular and Light
• Fonts with different fonts, ensuring any text is legible.
• You will also have the option of using a web font kit or downloading an OTF or TTF file.
• No worries about missing out on any key characters!

6. Bergen Text – Sans Serif Font

Bergen Text is an elegant, clean and minimalistic font for university and college academic papers. It has been designed specifically in a small 9-pixel size for easy legibility and accessibility reasons.

Bergen Font

In contrast to Fontana families (that are heavy with serifs), Bergen Text is very straightforward. This makes it the perfect candidate for creative works that need a commercial license and readability that will satisfy any customer’s needs.

UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS: 50 Million+ Fonts & Design Assets

All the Fonts you need and many other design elements, are available for a monthly subscription by subscribing to Envato Elements . The subscription costs $16.50 per month and gives you unlimited access to a massive and growing library of over 50 million items that can be downloaded as often as you need (stock photos too)!

Envato element offers key resources and parent tips about effective teaching strategies so students can learn more effectively, from pre-kindergarten to high school.

• Fonts designed for people who use small text sizes
• Sans font is available!
• Get a wide variety of fonts with just one purchase
• Improve legibility by using different weights and styles

7. Morton – Sans Serif Font

University students always find the best font to use on their academic papers and essays. However, some university has its own criteria to write these papers.

Morton Font

But most of the universities don’t have these font selections criteria on their academic guideline. That’s why students use basic and regular free fonts like Helvetica, Arial, Calibri.

If you want to stand out and increase your marks in academic and university essays. Then try to use a unique font. Because everyone is using the same font in their essays.

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That’s why choosing a unique and stylish sans serif font in your writing is the best way to mark better.

• Fonts are a single click away.
• It’s perfect for small text sizes.
• A grotesque typeface classic.
• Comes in nine weights and stylistic variations for the nerd in all of us.

Final Words

Unique fonts are the key to standing out and making eye-popping clear academic papers. These best fonts can be really unique with clean formatting. Students and professionals always need these great typefaces for their documents, presentations, or any other assignment that needs design

You can check out Envato elements Fonts to get the most out of it. Thank you

About the author

Al Shariar Apon

I’m a digital content creators and tech-savvy enthusiast. In this website I would like to share my knowledge and Google productivity tools, tips, templates. Thank you.

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15 Best Fonts for Essays: Enhance Your Writing Skills

When it comes to writing essays, students often focus on the content, structure, and grammar. However, one crucial element that is often overlooked is the choice of font. Believe it or not, the font you use can significantly impact the readability and overall presentation of your essay. In this article, we’ll explore the 15 best fonts for essays, and explain why and how each font can be the perfect choice for your academic writing.

Why Choosing the Right Font Matters

Affecting readability and comprehension.

The first reason to consider when choosing a font for your essay is readability. Fonts with clear and distinct characters make it easier for your teacher to read and understand your work. Fonts like Times New Roman and Georgia are excellent choices because they have serif characters that guide the eye smoothly from one letter to the next, enhancing readability.

Impact on Grades and Teacher’s Perception

The font you select can also influence how your teacher perceives your essay. Using a professional and legible font can give your essay a polished appearance and suggest that you take your work seriously. This, in turn, can positively impact your grades.

Adding a Personalized Touch

Additionally, your choice of font allows you to add a personal touch to your essay. While it’s important to follow formatting guidelines, selecting a font that resonates with you and complements your writing style can make your essay feel more unique and engaging.

Serif Fonts

Times new roman.

Classic and Formal

Times New Roman is a timeless choice for academic essays. Its classic and formal appearance makes it suitable for various types of essays. The clear serifs and even spacing contribute to its readability, ensuring that your teacher can focus on your content.

Easy on the Eyes

Georgia is another serif font that’s easy on the eyes. It’s a great choice for longer essays, as it combines readability with a touch of elegance. Its slightly larger x-height (the height of lowercase letters) contributes to its legibility.

Sans-Serif Fonts

Modern and Clean

For essays that are intended to be read on screens, Arial is a modern and clean sans-serif font. It’s easy to read on digital devices, and its simple design ensures that your words take center stage.

Legible and Professional

Calibri is a sans-serif font known for its legibility. It’s an ideal choice for typed assignments, as it looks professional and is easy to read both on paper and on screen.

Script Fonts

Adds a Personal Touch

Cursive fonts can add a personal touch to your essay, making it suitable for creative and reflective pieces. However, use them sparingly and primarily for headings or special emphasis.

Lucida Handwriting

Elegant and Unique

Lucida Handwriting is an elegant script font that can make your essay stand out. It’s a unique choice that adds a touch of sophistication to your work.

Decorative Fonts

Attention-Grabbing Headers

Decorative fonts like “Impact” are best used for attention-grabbing headers or titles. However, avoid using them for the main body of your essay, as they can be challenging to read in longer passages.

Playful and Informal

Comic Sans is a playful and informal font. While it’s not suitable for formal essays, it can work well for humorous or light-hearted pieces.

How to Choose the Best Font

Consider the essay type and purpose.

The type of essay you’re writing and its purpose should guide your font choice. Formal essays benefit from serif fonts like Times New Roman, while creative pieces can experiment with script fonts like Lucida Handwriting.

Prioritize Readability

Above all, prioritize readability. Ensure that the font you choose doesn’t distract from your content and that it’s easy for your teacher to read.

Maintain Consistency

Consistency is key. Stick to one font throughout your essay to maintain a professional and organized appearance.

Seek Teacher’s Guidance

If you’re uncertain about which font to use, don’t hesitate to ask your teacher for guidance. They can provide specific recommendations based on your assignment.

Font Size and Spacing

When you’ve chosen the right font, it’s essential to pay attention to font size and spacing.

Proper Font Size for Readability

Select an appropriate font size that makes your text easily readable. A font size of 12pt is standard for most academic essays.

Appropriate Line Spacing

Use double-spacing or follow your teacher’s instructions for line spacing. Adequate spacing between lines ensures that your essay is well-organized and easy to read.

Margins and Formatting Tips

Maintain proper margins and follow any formatting guidelines provided by your teacher or institution. Consistency in formatting is crucial for a professional appearance.

Sample Essays with Font Choices

Let’s take a look at some sample essays using different fonts and explain why each font is suitable for the given topic. This will help you understand how to apply font choices effectively in your own writing.

In conclusion, the font you choose for your essay is more than just a stylistic decision. It plays a vital role in enhancing readability, impacting your grades, and adding a personal touch to your work. Experiment with different fonts, but always prioritize readability and professionalism. Remember, the best font for your essay is the one that helps you convey your ideas effectively and impress your teacher with your writing skills. So, go ahead, choose your font wisely, and craft outstanding essays that leave a lasting impression. Happy writing!

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The Best Fonts for Your Essays, Books & Other Long Form Texts

• Inspirational
• Tips and Trends

Choosing the right font can seem like an impossible task. There are so many things to consider. What is the font going to be used for? What message are you trying to send? Is the font readable? Does the font include special features? Combine these questions with virtually unlimited font choices, and you’ll find your head spinning.

Different styles of fonts serve different purposes. Bold, blocky fonts are typically used for titles or headings. Script fonts are used for creative projects such as invitations, posters and apparel. Finally, there are fonts that work well as body copy. Body text is your longer text that usually appears in paragraphs. Because this text can be anything from a few words to millions of pages, legibility is very important. If a viewer is going to spend longer that a few seconds reading your text, you need to make sure that you’re providing a great reading experience. We’ll take a look at some tips for choosing the right fonts for longer bodies of text and I’ll also make some recommendations for fonts that you can use for your next project.

A Little Spacing Goes A Long Way

One of the biggest mistakes people make when working with longer blocks of text is not using correct spacing. The spacing between lines, paragraphs and characters can be the difference between fomenting being easy to read or impossible to read. Often, people space text and element to close in an attempt to save space, use less pages or get in some extra information in a small area. I get it. Sometimes you have one word left over, and you really don’t want to create a widow and orphan situation. But, there is no reason to cram all of your body text into a small area.

Reserve The Decorations For Parties And Special Events

As graphic designers, we tend to be creative people. I love adding a bit of flair and pizzaz to everything. There’s a time and a place for the fancy had-lettered fonts. Your body text is neither the time nor the place. Using a decorative font to signify a chapter or section header can be a really nice visual break and keep everything from appearing as a never-ending wall of text. Using a decorative font as the default font for your body will be impossible to read and put a lot of strain on the viewers eyes. It will also take up significantly more space than using a clean font designed for long works of text.

Font Pairing Is Still Important

Making your text easy to read is your top priority, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add some variety to your text. We’ve already mentioned how using decorative fonts for chapter and section headers can be useful, but there are some other situations where mixing things up is a great idea. If you have subsections throughout your text, you can implement some font pairing. For subsections, you wouldn’t want to make them decorative, but you would want to find a way to distinguish between the subsections and the body text. If you need help with font pairing check out: How to Mix and Match Fonts to Add Depth to Any Design .

Recommendations

• Best For Font Pairing

Lato is a great font for mixing, matching and pairing fonts. Lato has several variations of thick and thin weights that provide so many possibilities for pairing your fonts. You could use Lato Regular for the body of your text and Lato Heavy for your titles. If you’re new to font pairing and want a really easy way to guarantee your fonts will have some diversity while keeping a consistent style, Lato is for you.

• Best For Universal Titles & Body Text

Gotham  is great if you’re looking for a font that works well for titles as well as body text. Gotham is one of those fonts that look great in any size and any case. The characters are spaced well and it’s very easy to read. If you don’t want a ton of variation between your titles and your body, Gotham is a great choice.

• Best Pre-Installed Font

Futura is a font that can be found on most computers. It’s a favorite among many designers and is a great go-to font if you’re not able to install any custom fonts on a machine. Futura can be a bit overused these days, but it’s still a great choice when your options are limited and you need something quick, easy and readily available.

• Best Serif Font

Adobe Caslon Pro is a great choice if you prefer a serif font over a sans serif font. It’s classic, easy to read and adds a bit of a rustic feel to your work.

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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.

What Are the Best Fonts in Word?

Maybe you’re looking for the ideal font to use for a project. Maybe it’s a resume. Maybe you’re a designer, looking for an appealing Word font choice to recommend to your client.

No matter what the cause, you want to know: what are the best fonts in Word?

“Best” is subjective, so I’ll list the top 10 Word font styles, as well as why they’re the best, and let you select the one you think is right for you.

You may be asking why I’m such a font expert. I'm not a designer, but I have worked extensively with designers.  I've also read a lot of content online. That's how I know that no matter how good your words are, you also need to think about the right font to use in that situation for maximum impact. 

Let's dive in.

Most used font style in Microsoft Word: Calibri

Today, the default font in Microsoft Word is Calibri, making it the most likely contender for this choice. Microsoft likely picked the Calibri font back in 2007 due to its modern and clean aesthetic with its rounded letterforms and balanced proportion.

Developed by Luc(as) De Groot, it's a Sans-Serif font. It was meant to show off Microsoft's own ClearType technology, which makes text look better on LCD screens. 

Here's a nice sample of it:

Calibri Font. Image created via Canva.

Ideal font for a school essay: Arial

When it comes to the right font for graded essays, you're looking for a professional and readable ascetic. That means Comic Sans to the back, please. 

Calibri is a great choice for it, but I'd select Arial as my top pick for any essays you have to submit. As a clean and modern sans-serif font, Arial offers a straightforward and professional look while maintaining readability.

It was designed by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders for Monotype Corporation in 1982. The font was initially developed as a replacement for Helvetica, which was popular in the graphic design industry but had limited availability for digital typesetting systems at the time.

It's not one of the most decorative fonts, but it looks good and sharp no matter the font size. Here's a sample:

Arial font. Image created via Canva.

Best font for accessibility: Open Sans

This category includes anyone who wants to ensure that readers with dyslexia, screen readers, or any other kind of visual or reading disability can still access your text. Developed by Steve Matteson in 2010, Open Sans is a cousin to Comic Sans MS, and it's an open-source Google font. 

I love this font for this purpose because of these features:

Ample spacing: allows for easy reading and comprehension.

Versatility: this font will work in digital, print, headers, body text, and across multiple other mediums. 

Recommended by the pros: most importantly, it's recommended in the context of accessibility guidelines, including the WCAG ( Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ).

Aside from selecting a different font, you should also consider factors such as font size, line spacing, and background color should also be considered to create an inclusive and accessible reading experience.

Here's what it looks like:

Open Sans font. Image created via Canva.

Top font for your resume: Times New Roman

Unlike essays, you have a new requirement here: you want something that looks pretty. That's why I recommend Times New Roman. It's one of the more decorative fonts, while still remaining firmly readable and professional-looking. 

Plus, it's traditional. Developed by British type designer Stanley Morison, it was commissioned by the British newspaper, The Times, in the early 1930s.

Here's a little sample:

Times New Roman font. Created via Canva.

Top font for designers: Helvetica

I looked on Reddit to see what the top choice was, and most people said Helvetica due to its clean and timeless design. It has a neutral appearance that can adapt well to various design style. 

Other fonts mentioned were Montserrat (my personal fave), Roboto, Josefin, Work Sans, Lato, and Mate.

Helvetica is built to spec, too – it was created by Swiss typeface designers Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann in the late 1950s. They wanted to develop a neutral and versatile font that could be used across a range of applications, from advertising to signage and corporate branding.

Helvetica font sample. Image created via Canva.

Most readable Word font: Verdana

Many of the fonts I've mentioned above are very readable, but Verdana takes the readable cake. It's a in the sans-serif fonts family, designed specifically for digital screens. Its generous spacing and large x-height contribute to its legibility, especially at smaller sizes.

It was designed specifically for Microsoft by Matthew Carter in the 1990s with wide letterforms and generous spacing.

Curious about what it looks like? Here's a snapshot:

Image created via Canva. Slightly jankier-looking as I had to source samples from Font-samples

Most compatible Word font: Georgia

My home state! And also one of my favorite serif fonts. Georgia is widely supported and available on different platforms. It is commonly used for web content and is considered a highly compatible choice. 

Another Matthew Carter original, this one was commissioned by Microsoft as part of their initiative to enhance the legibility of text on computer screens.

Here's a sample: 

Georgia font sample, created via Canva

Most usable font for your website: PT Sans

 PT Sans is a versatile and readable sans-serif font that supports various languages and character sets. It has a neutral design and works well for both body text and headlines. That's why it's so great for almost any website design.

Designed by Russian type designer Alexandra Korolkova, in collaboration with Olga Umpeleva and Vladimir Yefimov, it was released in 2009 as part of the PT Fonts project, which aimed to create a set of free and open-source fonts for public use.

This is what it looks like:

PT Sans font sample, image created via Canva

Best fonts — for you: Your choice!

Honestly, if you've scanned this whole list and haven't found anything suitable, I recommend you spend some time browsing Reddit's designer subreddits and poring through Google Fonts. The world is your oyster.

You don't even have to limit yourself to a particular family. For instance, serif fonts are known in the industry as being more legible, but one study found there was very little difference between a serif typeface and sans fonts.

As I mentioned, my personal favorite is Montserrat just due to its sleek look and attractive sans-yness. But you may be different!

Montserrat (author’s favorite) font sample, image created via Canva,

Bonus: Worst font to avoid

Any kind of cursive font is almost always a no-no in design. Practice your hand calligraphy all you want, but there's a reason the majority of the web uses typewriter-style letters. 

Especially for legal documents, web design,  or anything else that will be seen and judged by your peers, employers, or colleagues, your font selection should be neat and readable. 

I also recommend any kind of special characters, commonly used to differentiate usernames on platforms like Twitter. These are almost impossible for screen readers to parse appropriately.

Image created via Canva.

Where can I get fonts?

Bored of Microsoft's own fonts? A great place to look for more is Google Fonts. These are easily downloadable and will work across almost any online context. 

What's the difference between a Serif and a Sans font?

The main difference between them lies in their letterform design and the presence or absence of small decorative strokes known as serifs.

If you look at Georgia's G, you'll see it has little ticks on the ends of the letter. By comparison, PT's S has no ticks - it's a clean line.

See how the Serif font has the distinguishing ticks, while the Sans font is smooth?

Serif fonts are often preferred for lengthy text passages, such as books and articles, where the serifs aid in guiding the eye along the lines of text. Sans-serif fonts are popular for digital content and headings, where legibility on screens and a modern appearance are prioritized.

Typeface vs font?

Although typeface is often used interchangeably with font by design noobs like me, there is a distinction in the field of typography.

A typeface refers to a set of designed characters that share consistent design attributes such as stroke width, shape, and overall style.

Meanwhile, a font is a digital file that contains the data necessary to display or print a specific typeface at a particular size, weight, and style.

What other fonts are good?

There are so many! If you're ever looking for the optimal choice for whatever application, I recommend looking for fonts that were specifically designed or used in that capacity. 

For example, Franklin Gothic was used in the Star Wars subtitles. A great choice. Playfair Display is commonly known for making logos due to the high contrast between its thick and thin lines. 

Hope you enjoyed this article! Looking for more fonts advice? I recommend you check out these subreddits:

https://www.reddit.com/r/identifythisfont/

https://www.reddit.com/r/typography/

https://www.reddit.com/r/fonts/

Happy fonting!

Who is Zulie Writes Staff ?

Annoying and Cliched: Why ChatGPT Only Creates Titles With Colons

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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 .

• 12 Best Serif Fonts in Microsoft Word
• 12 Smallest Fonts In Microsoft Word
• 12 Best Victorian Fonts in Microsoft Word
• 5 Best LaTeX Fonts in Microsoft Word

How-To Geek

The best fonts for google docs documents.

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Best fonts to use for google doc, what to look for when choosing a font, choose your favorite google font.

Google has a wide library of fonts that can turn your document into a pleasure to read and write. We've selected the best fonts to make your Google Doc documents look the best they can. We'll cover some classics as well as some underrated new fonts.

If you're a Google Docs user, you probably know that it employs the Arial typeface by default. However, there are also other alternatives offered by Google Fonts that provide similar professional flair and readability.

When it comes to documents, readability will always be a top priority, and Inter excels at this game. There are many types of writings that can be done with this typeface. The font was originally designed to work on the 11px font size specifically. It has a tall x-height that aids in the readability of mixed-case and lower-case texts.

The Inter UI font family has nine different weight styles available on Google Docs. It even has OpenType Features and glyphs if you are looking for more design options.

If you like texts that are carefully spaced out and friendly yet formal, then Inter is your best bet. It's such a popular pick that you may even want to use Inter as your default font on Google Docs .

Where you can best use Inter:

• Blog or article writing
• Personal documents

Clean, sophisticated, and modern---these words best describe this sans serif font. Because of how clear and balanced the typeface is, you will usually see this style being used on the web. In fact, the font is still very readable, even on small screens.

This typeface is considered a humanist sans serif. In simple terms, it means it's written like a human holding a pen with minimalist contrasting strokes. And because of this, humanist sans serif designs are usually used in education, finance, and the government sector.

Since Open Sans is highly legible, it's best to use this font for:

• Academic requirements like reaction papers, research papers, or any kind of homework
• Any type of data that you input in a spreadsheet
• Formal letters

Google Docs only offers 30 fonts by default. To see Open Sans in the fonts list option, you'll need to add it to Google Docs .

Roboto is another sans serif font developed by Google, and it has six available weight styles on Google Docs. If we are going to compare it to the default Google Docs font, which is Arial, the former has a more condensed look.

Because of its condensed look, it is the perfect font to use when a lot of content is needed, but there is not a lot of space to work with. When you use Roboto, the typeface appears to be largely geometric since it belongs to the neo-grotesque family of sans serif typefaces. It also has open curves, which makes it a friendly and versatile font to use overall.

Roboto is part of the regular family, and you can also use this font together with the other family type, the Roboto Condensed, and Roboto Slab.

Now, where should you consider using this sans serif font?

• Documents that will be opened using a phone or a small screen
• Documents where you have to condense the content in one page

Bonus fact: Roboto is the system font of the Android operating system!

Merriweather

Another one of our top Google fonts is called Merriweather. It's a free, open-source serif typeface, and it has a full set of weights and styles available on Google Docs. It also has an interesting set of Glyphs.

Related: What's the Difference Between a Font, a Typeface, and a Font Family?

This font was designed by Sorkin Type, and its signature style balances aesthetics, expression, and utility. No wonder why Merriweather gives off a polished and elegant look, making your documents look more professional.

As for Merriweather's best feature, it's the ability to stand out due to its unique flair. However, it also blends in well when paired with other sans serif fonts such as Roboto, Montserrat, and Merriweather Sans.

Merriweather is best used for:

• Paragraph headings
• Professional letters and documents

Inconsolata

Coming from the monospace family, Inconsolata is designed for printed code listings and is favored by programmers. As we've mentioned, it is monospaced, meaning the letters occupy the same amount of width. This kind of typeface dates back to the typewriter days.

One drawback for monospaced fonts is that they may be a bit harder to read than the other types. But Inconsolata is one of the few monospaced fonts that does not compromise legibility. While each character has the same width, the spaces in between them are just right. It's not too condensed but also not too spaced out.

Consider using Inconsolata if you are doing these types of documents:

• Code listings
• Manuscripts
• Screenplay or scriptwriting

Additionally, you can also try to use Inconsolata as paragraph headings and pair it with sans serif fonts.

We have another humanist sans-serif on the list, and it's PT Mono. This font is part of the Public Type family where they have sans and serif typefaces. But as its name suggests, this is a monospaced typeface. It's very similar to Inconsolata, except PT Mono is sharper on the edges, making it look more straightforward and more formal compared to the other font.

If you are a heavy user of spreadsheets, this font should be your go-to. Each character has the same amount of width, so it's easier to calculate the size of entry fields, cells, or tables. To activate PT Mono on your Google Docs, you have to go to the font options list and select "More fonts."

We recommend you use PT Mono on your next spreadsheet file so you can get a feel of this humanist monospaced font.

In addition to worksheets, this font can also be used for:

• Making work tables
• Creating work forms

Source Sans Pro

Source Sans Pro is Adobe's first Open Source typeface family, and it's best for user interfaces .

But what is an Open Source font? These are free fonts that are developed to be used for any purpose, including commercial work. Most designers use an Open Source font because the design is open for modification. The simplicity of Source Sans Pro makes it very pleasing to the eyes. It is sleek and slender, and the style is known for its minimalist approach.

Source Sans Pro makes a good paragraph heading too. The next time you create something on Google Docs, try pairing Source Sans Pro with Roboto or Open Sans for variation.

You can use Source Sans Pro when you are doing the following types of documents:

• Article writing or blog writing
• Note-taking

Nunito Sans

The last on the list is Nunito Sans. It has seven weight styles available on Google Docs. This font is a well-balanced sans serif typeface.

This font's design looks more rounded than the other sans serif fonts, which makes it more appealing. But it's not so round to the point that it makes the style look soft. If you look at it carefully, the uniformity of the strokes balances out the roundness of the design. Overall, it gives that professional yet friendly vibe.

Similar to Source Sans Pro, designers like to use Nunito Sans as well because it's simple yet formal enough. You can use this font to give more personality to your document while still keeping it formal.

Nunito Sans is best used for these kinds of documents:

• Recommendation letters
• Research papers

Selecting a font to use may look pretty simple, but there are actually many factors to think about. The most essential one to consider is whether the document you're working on is for print or web. Viewing from a screen and from paper are two completely different experiences, so formatting decisions like what font style to use for each should be distinct from each other.

With that, here are the considerations you should review when choosing a font:

Character Line Spacing

When characters are too close to each other, this can cause your content to look denser and messier. Choose a font with wider character spacing so they're easier to read regardless of how small the sizes can be.

Serif vs. Sans-Serif

Related: What Do "Serif" and "Sans Serif" Mean?

Serif fonts have decorative strokes on them that give your writing a more elegant look. However, choosing consistently readable serifs can be challenging. Sans-serif fonts tend to be cleaner, simpler, and easier to read. Choose according to the mood you're going for and, of course, the readability.

Degree of Legibility

The way you use typefaces matters. You have to think about the size, range of weights and ligatures, clarity of the characters, and height and contrast ratio standards. Choose was reads best to your target audience.

There are over a thousand accessible Google fonts to choose from. All of them are 100% safe to use and can easily be downloaded from their website. In addition, there are no licensing restrictions, as all the fonts listed in their directory are open source and free. You can use them on your Google documents, websites, commercial projects, and even on print.

So, take some time exploring these awesome font options and narrow down your choices until you come up with the ones that can best express your message.

Related: How to Find, Add, and Remove Fonts in Google Docs

35+ Best Fonts for Books (Cover, Titles, and Body Text)

Finding the right font is the most important part of book design. It not only plays a key role in improving readability but also helps make your book look more professional.

In this collection, we’re featuring some of the best fonts you can use to design books. It’s always good practice to use at least two different fonts for your titles and body text. Of course, the cover design requires an entirely different font as well.

We made sure to cover all these aspects in this collection by listing fonts for covers, titles, and body text.

Sans-serif fonts are proven to improve readability. It’s ideal to use a sans font for body text. For titles, you can use both serif and sans fonts. However, there are times you may want to mix and match. We’ll leave it up to you to decide.

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Morton – Condensed Title Font Family

Morton is another modern font family that comes with 9 different font weights. This font can be used as both a title font or for body text. It features a condensed and grotesque style of design that gives it a classic look and feel. The font is ideal for professional and non-fiction book designs.

RNS Sanz – Clean Sans-Serif Font Family

RNS Sanz is a clean and minimalist sans-serif font family you can use with business and corporate books and magazines. This font includes 7 different font weights ranging from light to bold and black. Making it a suitable choice for designing both titles and body text.

Martian B – Industrial Title Font Family

Remember that big blocky text you see on the signs in industrial zones and on the sides of large containers. This is a font inspired by those industrial fonts. It has a very geometric design and it’s perfect for crafting titles for many different types of books. The font features 9 weights and includes glyphs as well.

Addington CF – Elegant Serif Font for Books

Even though sans-serif fonts are perfect for all kinds of book designs, we can’t leave out the elegance of serif fonts. Addington CF is a professional serif font you can use with your business-related and non-fiction book designs. The font comes in 7 weights including italic sets.

Seb Neue – Free Bold Font Family

You can use this beautiful font for free with your various book design projects. It actually comes with a license that allows you to use it with commercial projects as well. The font includes 12 different weights featuring both uppercase and lowercase letters.

Landasans – Free Title Font For Books

Landasans is another free font you can use with your personal projects. This font comes with a tall and narrow design that makes it most suitable for book cover and title designs.

FLIX – Modern Book Cover Font

You can create a bold and stylish book cover and titles using this creative font. Flix is a modern display font that features a set of unique letters with rounded edges. This is an all-caps font so it can only be used to design titles and covers.

Ace Sans – Bold Sans-Serif Font Family

Ace Sans is a modern font family that comes with multiple styles. It includes 8 different weights with light to extra bold and black styles. This wide variety of font styles makes this a great choice for crafting both titles and body text for your book projects.

Orion Pro – Modern Fonts for Books

This is another modern font featuring a total of 12 fonts. Orion Pro is available in 6 different weights and each style has an italic version as well. The font design is inspired by Swiss fonts and it’s perfect for book body text design.

Sumo – Fun Book Typeface

Check out Sumo, a fun, and playful typeface perfect for kids’ books, and comics. It comes with 273 ligatures, standard uppercase, and lowercase characters, and seamless multilingual support. Do try this out for your upcoming book title.

Maxwell – Retro Book Font

Here we have Maxwell, a neat, condensed sans-serif font that will take you back to the 50s without a time machine. It can very well be used as a headline, or body text, and comes with a range of customization features to keep you busy.

Benja – Free Comic Book Typeface

Created with attention to detail, Benja is a dialogue font perfectly suited for comic books. It features a range of glyphs, international characters, and multilingual support. You can get your hands on Benja without having to spend a penny.

Anthera – Modern Condensed Sans Serif Font

Anthera is a bold and condensed font that has a perfect look for crafting attention-grabbing titles for book covers. It has a clean sans-serif design with tall and narrow spacing. It’s great for all types of books.

Panther – Modern Font for Book Covers

Pather is a clean sans-serif font that features a slightly rounded letter design. The clean-cut look of the letters makes it a perfect choice for horror and thriller book cover designs. As well as many other fiction and non-fiction books.

Landiva – Modern Condensed Font for Book Covers

Another tall and narrow font for designing book titles and covers. This font comes with a set of modern and letter letters that will make your titles look much clearer and easier to read. It’s available in OpenType and TrueType formats.

Venus Plant – Sci-Fi Font for Book Covers

If you’re working on a title design for a sci-fi novel, this font will fit perfectly for the cover design. It features a futuristic letter design with a cool sci-fi look and feel. A great choice for fiction novels.

Variera – Free Geometric Sans Serif Font

This free sans-serif font features a chunky letter design that will easily highlight your book covers and titles. You can use the free font with personal and commercial projects as well.

Ghina – Creative Font for Book Titles

Ghina is a creative font with a set of letters featuring an uncommon and unique style. It has slightly squared characters that add an attractive look to title designs. This font is ideal for both fiction and non-fiction book covers.

Sellia – Stylish Script Font For Book Titles

You can use this font to design beautiful titles for book covers related to novels and non-fiction books. It’s especially suitable for romantic novels and books on feminine topics.

Codename FX – Slab Serif Font for Books

This is a family of slab serif fonts that includes 22 different fonts for you to choose from. It’s most suitable for designing body text for books as well as covers. The font consists of ligatures, alternate characters, and outline styles too.

Kurdis – Tall Condensed Font For Book Covers

Kurdis is a unique condensed font with a geometric design. This font has a very tall and narrow letter design that’s ideal for crafting book covers. The font has multilingual support and features both uppercase and lowercase letters.

Kompeni – Free Font for Book Titles

This free font has a unique style of serif lettering with a creative look. It’s ideal for designing titles for non-fiction books. The free version of the font is only available for personal use.

Fonseca – Art Deco Font Family

Fonseca is a beautiful font family with a design inspired by classic art deco from the early 20th century. This font is simply perfect for designing book cover titles and headings. The font includes a total of 16 typefaces including 8 weights with obliques, alternates, and with more than 340 glyphs.

Frank – Bold Title Font for Books

If you’re looking for a big and bold font to design an attractive cover for a book or even design titles for pages, this font is perfect for you. Frank is a bold sans-serif font that comes in 5 different weights featuring each weight in 4 different styles including oblique and rough styles. It also has more than 300 glyphs as well.

Genera Sans – Free Title Font

A stylish and bold font that’s ideal for making titles and headings. This free version includes one font style from the font family. You can use it for free with your personal projects.

Houston Italic – Free Outline & Shadow Font

Just as the name suggests, this free font features a stylish italic letter design. You can use it to design titles and headings for books and magazines. The font is free to use with your personal projects.

Mriya Grotesk – Minimal Sans-Serif Font

The clean and minimal design of the letters makes this font quite attractive. If you aim to make your book easily readable, this font will help you achieve that goal. Mriya Grotesk features a total of 8 fonts including 4 font weights such as bold, regular, light, and heavy. As well as 4 italic versions.

Wensley – Modern Serif Font Family

Designing a cover for a non-fiction or business book? This font will come in handy. Wensley is an elegant and modern serif font that comes in multiple styles ranging from light to bold. It also includes multilingual support and both uppercase and lowercase letters.

Storytime – Kids Book Font

Storytime is a clean, and modern book font that will make the kids feel right at home. The readability is thoughtful, making the children engage with the content, and trust the story and message the book has to offer.

Christmas Heart – Free Book Font

If you are looking for a simple and sweet font for your book title, look no further than Christmas Heart. It has an adorable design that instantly catches the eye and comes packed with uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation, symbols, and multilingual support.

Visby CF – Geometric Font Family

Visby is a beautiful and clean sans-serif font that features an elegant and rounded letter design. This font is perfect for designing body text in all kinds of books and magazines. The font comes in 8 different weights including obliques as well as both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets.

CA Texteron – Classic Serif Font

This font will come in handy for designers who prefer the old-school style of serif fonts. CA Texteron is a serif font featuring a classic design that you normally see on official documents and manuals. This font includes 6 different weights and includes italics as well.

Helios – Cover & Title Font for Books

Helios is a great font you can use to design titles for various fiction and non-fiction books. The futuristic look of the font makes it most suitable for designing covers for science fiction novels and magazines. It’s an all-caps font that includes many alternates.

Rozanova – Free Clean Geometric Font

A clean and modern font that can be used for both title and body text designs. This font has a minimal geometric design that stands out from the crowd. It’s free to use with personal projects.

Grifter Bold – Free Book Title Font

Grifter Bold is a thick and bold font that’s most suitable for crafting attention-grabbing titles for book covers. This font includes both uppercase and lowercase letters. And it’s free to use with personal and commercial projects.

Five Essential Tips for Choosing Fonts for Your Book

1. match the font to the book’s genre.

Different genres often have different conventions when it comes to font choice. A sci-fi novel might do well with a sleek, modern font, while a romance novel could benefit from a more traditional, elegant script. Take some time to research books within your genre to understand the common themes and stylistic choices, and choose a font that complements your genre effectively.

2. Consider Readability

While stylistic choices are important, readability is paramount. Ensure your chosen font is easy to read, both for the cover and the body text. For body text, it’s often recommended to use serif fonts (like Times New Roman) as they are considered easier on the eyes for long-form reading. The font on the cover should be legible even at a smaller scale, as your book may be displayed in smaller images online.

3. Pair Fonts Carefully

If you plan on using more than one font, ensure they complement each other well. A good rule of thumb is to pair a serif font with a sans-serif one to create a balance of styles. Avoid using fonts that are too similar to each other as this may create a jarring effect. Using fonts from the same family can help ensure a cohesive look.

4. Reflect the Book’s Tone

The chosen font should reflect the tone and mood of your book. Is it a serious work of non-fiction? Consider using a stately, authoritative serif font. Is it a fun children’s book? Try a playful, whimsical font. The font you choose can give potential readers a glimpse into the feel of the book before they even open the cover.

5. Test Different Sizes and Weights

Once you have selected potential fonts, try them out in different sizes and weights. This is particularly crucial for the cover, where your title and author name need to stand out. Bold or larger fonts can draw attention, but don’t overdo it. The key is achieving a balance that makes your cover intriguing and eye-catching, but still easy to read.

You may also want to check out our best title and headline fonts collection for more inspiration.

• Image & Graphic Designing

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.

Also Read :

• Worst Fonts For Dyslexics
• Best Fonts For Resume

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.

Check Out :

• Best Fonts For Legal Documents
• Best Signature Fonts In Word

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.

• Best Fonts For Kindle
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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.

• Best Fonts For Instagram Bio
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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.

• Best Writing Fonts For Cricut Card Making
• Best Helvetica Alternatives

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.

• Synthwave Fonts For Retro Designs
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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.

• Most Ugly Fonts Ever
• Helvetica vs Helvetica Neue – What’s The Difference

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.

• Easiest Fonts For Children Books
• Best Fontello Alternatives

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.

• Best Fonts For Memorization
• Best Transfonter Alternatives

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.

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?