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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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As an affiliate, we may earn a commission from qualifying purchases. We get commissions for purchases made through links on this website from Amazon and other third parties.

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.

Related Post: 10 Best Dark & Moody Lightroom Presets Free and Premium

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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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!

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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.

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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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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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12 Best Fonts for Academic Papers in Microsoft Word

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

Best Fonts for Academic Papers in Microsoft Word

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

Times New Roman

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

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

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

Baskerville Old Face

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Antiqua

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

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

Bookman Old Style

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

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

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

Palatino Linotype

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

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

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

Lucida Bright

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Century Gothic

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

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

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

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

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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

Font To Choose for Your Research Paper: Best Font for Essays

We’ve all, at some time in our lives, pondered the question of how to create an essay that gets good grades. You may find millions of instructions that will walk you through the process of writing an excellent essay by doing a simple search on Google or pay for research paper . However, a lot of individuals neglect to think about typefaces. In addition to learning how to acquire material and present it in an organized manner, students should also be taught how to style their written assignments, such as essays. When it concerns font for essay , typefaces are also a very important factor.

You will require to choose a typeface that is easy on the eyes. The issue is that there are literally thousands upon thousands of typefaces from which to choose. And after you’ve decided which one is the greatest, you’ll need to choose the appropriate size. Is it preferable to have a font size of 12 for the body paragraph and 14 for the titles? Let’s see what the best fonts for essays are out there check DoMyEssay  .

What About the Font Size?

When it comes to standard font size for essays, it’s usually 12 or 14. But 12 is usually recommended font size for college papers. New Times Roman, Arial, and Calibri are most often seen in this size. The typefaces you choose should be large enough so that your work can be read without putting undue strain on the eyes of the reader. Points are the standard unit of measurement for distances. MLA, American Psychological Association, and Harvard are the most used citation styles and conventions for scientific research publications. The value indicates the proportion of the display that the typeface uses.

Generally, 12 points are considered the minimum acceptable size for academic writing. Size-wise, it’s ideal for the target demographic without seeming too big or cumbersome. The text size you choose for your research paper is crucial in letting it seem professional and attractive. When completing the assignment, the author should utilize the prescribed font size. In figuring out how many webs pages your work needs, this aspect ratio is crucial. To ensure that we don’t go over or under the page count for the whole project, we’ve been using a font size of 12 to do the calculations.

Wensley Modern Serif Font Family

This one is a standard essay font that people use nowadays. Wensley is a contemporary serif font design that is widely used by undergraduates in a variety of educational institutions. This is the ideal look to go for if you wish to give off an air of sophistication and competence to your teachers, which is exactly what you should strive for. This typeface supports a variety of non-English letters, making it suitable for use in any language.

Serif Or Sans Serif, That’s Always A Dilemma

Serif and Sans Serif are always in sort of a rivalry within academic fonts. When deciding whether to choose one of them for your study, the level of formality of the document and the environment in which it will be presented are the two most important factors to consider. The informality of sans serif typefaces makes them a good choice for casual presentations, while the beauty of serif fonts makes them a good choice for more official scholarly articles. It is often advised to choose a sans serif since it is more readable and less tiresome to write on a pc screen. If we are thinking about the place it will be released, we should take this into consideration.

The majority of analyses and publications, regardless of the publication venue in which they appear, benefit from having either serif or sans serif font for college essay included in the same document. The headlines or restricted quotations in a piece of writing will often benefit link from using one style, whereas the main section of the text may benefit from using the other.

Our further font research leads us to Calibri. The popularity of this typeface is comparable to that of the font Times New Roman. In addition to that, Calibri is a Sans typeface. There are a number of advantages to using this font, including the fact that it is not unusual, that it is simple to read, that it is user-friendly for cell devices, and many more. It is one of the safest options for some of the best research paper writing services too. However, this does not always imply that every aspect of this typeface has solely positive qualities. The fact that it is easy to forget about and not particularly thrilling is another one of its many drawbacks. On the other hand, it is commonly used by electronic firms who are responsible for the creation of websites.

Times New Roman

If you ask any best essay writer service which font is the most appropriate to choose, he or she will pick Times New Roman. The Times of London, a magazine published in the United Kingdom, is where this typeface got its name. A new font was commissioned to be designed by the Times in 1929 by typographer Stanley Morison. He was in charge of leading the project, while Victor Lardent, an advertisement designer for the Times, was the one who designed the letterings under his supervision.

Even when it was brand new, Times New Roman was met with opposition. The fact that the new typeface was featured in a daily paper contributed to its meteoric rise to fame among manufacturers of the era. Times New Roman has consistently been one of the very first typefaces offered for each new writing device, despite the fact that composing technologies have changed significantly in the intervening decades.  As a consequence of this, its scope has grown even more.

Creating an essay for high school or university requires the student to pay attention to numerous details. Among the most crucial aspects of an excellent college essay are its subject, structure, substance, trustworthiness of resources, the writer’s voice, simplicity of ideas, and continuity of views. There is, nevertheless, a factor that many university learners grossly undervalue. Making sure you choose a legible typeface is just as important as providing a well-thought-out argument throughout your academic paper.

5 Best Fonts For Essay Writing

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The 12 Most Readable Fonts for Print, Hands Down

by Gatekeeper Press | May 24, 2021 | Blog

Table of Contents

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

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

What to Look for When Selecting a Font for Print

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

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

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

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

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

The Best, Reader-Approved Fonts for Books

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

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

The best fonts for books include:

Serif Fonts

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

Sans-Serif Fonts

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

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

Trust the Design Team at Gatekeeper Press

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

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7 Writers on How Their Go-to Fonts Make Them Feel

Words by Liz Stinson

Published on October 16th, 2018

The writing process is nothing without meaningless rituals. For some, it’s waking up at the crack of dawn to work in solace before the rest of the world rises. For others, it’s laying on the shower floor until the good idea comes. The one thing that unites all writers, no matter the medium, is that they’ve got to put pen to paper (or more likely, fingers to keyboard) eventually.

And when they do? Let’s just say it can take many different forms. Not everyone types in Google Docs’ default font. And not everyone believes Baskerville is the path to trustfulness . For proof, we asked a handful of writers about their typographic preferences. Here’s what they had to say.

1 Oren Uziel: Courier

I write in Courier. All screenwriters write in Courier. Partly because it’s supposed to mimic what text looked like coming out of a typewriter (romantic!), but mostly so that all of our scripts have a standard, measurable length, thus making it easier to guesstimate how long the resulting movie will be.

This is sort of boring, but also sort of appealing in that it’s one less thing for a screenwriter to worry about, like deciding what to wear in the morning or being sexually attractive. But I suppose anyone coming to a website where writers discuss their favorite typefaces gave up on all that a long, long time ago.

2 Margaret Rhodes: Arial, 10 pt.

I don’t remember when the shift took place, but at some point a few years ago I realized that anything I write or edit in a Google Doc (so, the totality of all my work) has to be in Arial, 10 point size. Like a psycho, the first thing I do when I open a Google Doc is highlight everything and change it to 10, Arial, because that kind of across-the-board consistency feels the same to me as decluttering a living room before a day of working from home. I do this even when it’s technically not my document.

There are two notable exceptions: Because I don’t like underlining, and I really hate bolded letters, when I make outlines of any kind I put the subject [headline] in Georgia, point size 14. It’s what the New York Times uses so it feels smart. And for years, my resume has been in Bell MT, which I think is scholarly like Baskerville but a little more delicate, a little less Ivy League.

3 Jon Roth: Lucida Blackletter

When I was about 10-years-old and just coming around to the idea of writing recreationally, the only font for me was Lucida Blackletter. Part of the draw was the angular, old-school type: I wanted to write a book, and nothing says ‘book’ like these Gutenberg-y letters.

More than that, though, Blackletter felt right for the kinds of stories I was writing: big, bloody, Gothic fantasies, heavy on flickering torchlight, ringing swords, and poisonous jewelry. Basically I was writing a whole lot of Dungeons & Dragons fanfic, and Blackletter transported me to that world. These days, I have other props to set the writing mood (embarrassingly, I light a lot of candles), so I stick with Arial when I open Google Docs. It evokes nothing for me except clarity, which I think should be a writer’s first priority.

4 Perrin Drumm: Arial

I am font agnostic. Choosing a “perfect” font would send me down a rabbit hole I would never crawl out of. I choose not to descend into the darkness and use whatever font an application throws my way.

For a graphic design editor who’s pretty particular about most writing-related things (don’t even get me started on pens and notebooks and erasers), my acquiescence to default fonts strikes even me as odd, but so far the Helvetica Neue of my Notes app and the Arial of my Google Docs has served me well. I leave typesetting to the designers.

5 Zack Schamberg: Courier

One of the blessings of screenwriting is that the formatting choices are made for you: Courier, always. It is definitely weird that an entire industry swears by a font that’s pretending it came out of a typewriter, but I’ve grown to love it. It’s simple and dumb and easy to read. When I learned that The Coen Brothers use Times New Roman, of course I had to try that, too. But Times New Roman reminds me too much of middle school.

6 Alyssa Bereznak: Arial, 14 pt

My preference for fonts has changed with the phases in my life. In high school my Xanga was littered with moody, embarrassing stuff: Impact, Comic Sans, Wingding, the works. In college I took myself very seriously, and exclusively wrote in Times New Roman. I then graduated to the beloved sans serif of the masses: Arial. Specifically, Arial, single-spaced in 12 point. I prefer as weightless a font as possible because my neuroses do quite enough on their own to complicate my writing process, thank you very much.

Recently, however, an alarming thing started happening. Due to a lifetime of staring at a laptop screen, I could no longer read my work in 12 point Arial. So I began reluctantly enlarging the font to 18 point to do my writing. When it came time to turn a draft into my editor, I would then sneakily shrink the the draft back to 12. This might sound insane, but I felt as though my identity, my youth, was tied to my ability to read and write in 12 point Arial.

Then one day, when I forget to shrink my draft, my sham of an existence was revealed. My editor immediately suggested I go to an eye doctor. Now I have glasses. My vision is better. But I still can’t read 12 point Arial without squinting. In case you were wondering, this story was written in 14 point. I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that’s just the type of writer I am now.

7 Thogdin Ripley: Albertus

What more noble a glyph to convey the high and nervous thoughts of the threadbare and slightly tweedy (i.e. me) as he screams into a Godless sky than Albertus? The selfsame font that Faber & Faber—in their prime, “paper covered” editions—used exclusively, and still redolent of Hughes and Plath, the characters were in fact designed by metal engraver (and later Faber art director) Berthold Wolpe to resemble letters carved into bronze. Although there is a perfectly functioning lowercase, I find the weighty, almost flinty off-ness of the bold capitals meets most needs—at least for notes to the milkman, shopping lists, etc.—printed in white on a black background for maximum effect, and hewn (preferably glowing) into living rock for something more hefty, like a deadline reminder.

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What are the best fonts for college essays?

One choice that students will have to make when completing college essays is the font. Now, this may not appear like an important factor, however it can make a substantial difference to the presentation of your essay. Some college essay tasks will have a style guide, whereas others will allow students to choose the font. No matter what subject you are doing the essay for or what year of college you are in, the font should always be taken seriously. In this article, we will show you what are the best fonts for college essays.

Times New Roman

The first font that you should be aware of is Times New Roman. This is the default font for many college essays, and it is also one that is considered the standard in APA, MLA, Chicago, and other referencing styles. This is the most commonly used font, and it is considered fairly formal.

It is a serif typeface font that is hugely popular even outside of academia. It has a fantastic reputation, and it is known as a font that is both professional and easy on the eye. If you are unsure of which font to use, then Times New Roman is always a reliable option. This is true especially if the essay will be printed out, since the font looks excellent on paper.

Another well known font is Arial. In contrast to Times New Roman, it is a sans-serif typeface. This is a clean font that is both professional and neutral. It is easy to read which makes it an appealing font choice for college essays. It is also a font which immediately grabs the attention of the reader which makes it a solid choice if you want to impress your professor.

For a combination of modern and classic, Calibri is the font to choose. Calibri has become the new default font for many word processing software. This is because it looks easy on the eye when it is on a computer. If your essay will be submitted online, then this can be a perfect choice of font. It is a clear font that is both straightforward and easy to read.

Another traditional font that is well worth considering, is Georgia. This is another font that looks fantastic on screen, but not so amazing on paper. This font has a classic feel, and was designed to be used on the screen. You can consider using it to make your essays seem more professional and presentable.

Closing Thoughts

Presentation is just as important as the content. Firstly, it is vital to read the instructions of your college essay. Make sure that you fully understand the requirements, and follow the font guidelines if they are given. If there is a choice to be made, you will have a better idea of the best fonts for college essays. These fonts will allow your work to be easily readable, and they will make the best impression.

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• In The News

How to Make an Essay Look Longer

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

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

Font Choice and Font Size

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

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

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

Space Between lines

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

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

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

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

Lengthen Header Content

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

Other Notes

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

110 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

This + the commas

THANKS GANG

REALLY REALLY LIKE THIS

This helped me so much!!!

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

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

I don’t know you. But I love you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

10? I can barely write 5 wow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank You… Thank You Very Much.

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

This is so helpful!

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

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

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

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

THIS HELPED SO MUCH WITH MY 30 PG ESSAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thx sooo much!!

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

THX SO MUCH!!!!

Oh my god thank you so much

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

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

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

this saved my aSS LAST YEARRRR

THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH

thIS SAVED ME LAST YEAR THANK YOU SO MUCH BRO

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

Merriweather is bigger than all of your fonts.

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

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

Nice job! thank you!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

any one here in 2019?? Oh and thks

Courier New is way bigger that Algerian.

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you so much! Ur a Lifesaver!

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

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

fuckin genius, bro

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

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

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

the biggest font is actually roboto mono

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

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

ooooh thanks for the advice!

don’t forget typing random words and making them white

thanks for the advice

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

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Essay writing: Formatting

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Essays are formal documents and should look professional Advice from the Skills Team

Whilst there are no hard rules about how you format essays, there are some conventions and common practices that are best to follow. If you use the settings on this page, you will produce an acceptably formatted essay.

Document layout

Margins - between 2 cm and 2.54 cm (1 inch) all around.

Line spacing - either 1.5 or double-line spacing.

Paragraph spacing - either 1 clear line between or at least 8 pt space after each paragraph (more if double-line spaced)

Alignment - left aligned (fully justified with a straight right-edge is not recommended as this reduces readability and accessibility). Some longer essays may require subheadings which should also be left-aligned.

Indents - no indents on first lines of paragraphs are needed.

It is also good practice to put your student number and module number in the header of the document and a page number at the bottom of the page.

Text formatting

Font - the default font that comes with MS Word (currently Calibri) is fine for academic work. You may see persistent advice in handbooks that suggests you should use Times New Roman or Arial. If you prefer these, you can change it - but this is no longer a requirement.

Font size - fonts should be 11 or 12 point.

Font style - headings and subheadings, if they are required (most essays will not use them), are usually formatted in bold and should be at least 2 point sizes larger than the standard text. Underlining should be avoided as this is seen as rather dated. Some text can be formatted in italics - see our page  Italics, when to use them , for guidance.

Shorter quotations in the text do not need to be italicised and should have double-quotations marks "like this" to indicate they are direct quotations. Longer quotations (what counts as this differs depending on your referencing style) should be created in their own paragraph, single spaced and indented by 1cm from both left and right margins:

For example:

Graduate attributes for employability are described as:

a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that makes graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. (Yorke, 2006)

The main change in this definition compared to the earlier definition of graduate attributes from Bowden (2000) is that that the attributes are no longer ...

UoH Harvard/APA

Your reference list should be in alphabetical order (by author surname) and single line spaced. There should be a clear line space (or at least 6 pt space) between each reference. All references should be left-aligned with no indentation. For information about how to format individual references, see the Harvard Hull Referencing Guide.

UoH Footnotes

Your reference list should be in alphabetical order (by first author surname) and single line spaced.  All references should be left-aligned and have a hanging indent (all but the first line are indented by approx. 1cm). For information about how to format individual references, see the  Footnotes Hull Referencing Guide.

Other referencing styles

Please see your individual departmental guidance.

We provide here a Microsoft Word template that can be used for your essays. It has the correct layout and formatting, including useful styles.

• Essay template

Download this template to somewhere you can access easily. When you click to open it, it will open a new document based on the template , leaving the original intact.

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Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the 3 popular essay formats: which should you use.

General Education

Not sure which path your essay should follow? Formatting an essay may not be as interesting as choosing a topic to write about or carefully crafting elegant sentences, but it’s an extremely important part of creating a high-quality paper. In this article, we’ll explain essay formatting rules for three of the most popular essay styles: MLA, APA, and Chicago.

For each, we’ll do a high-level overview of what your essay’s structure and references should look like, then we include a comparison chart with nitty-gritty details for each style, such as which font you should use for each and whether they’re a proponent of the Oxford comma. We also include information on why essay formatting is important and what you should do if you’re not sure which style to use.

Why Is Your Essay Format Important?

Does it really matter which font size you use or exactly how you cite a source in your paper? It can! Style formats were developed as a way to standardize how pieces of writing and their works cited lists should look. 

Why is this necessary? Imagine you’re a teacher, researcher, or publisher who reviews dozens of papers a week. If the papers didn’t follow the same formatting rules, you could waste a lot of time trying to figure out which sources were used, if certain information is a direct quote or paraphrased, even who the paper’s author is. Having essay formatting rules to follow makes things easier for everyone involved. Writers can follow a set of guidelines without trying to decide for themselves which formatting choices are best, and readers don’t need to go hunting for the information they’re trying to find.

Next, we’ll discuss the three most common style formats for essays.

MLA Essay Format

MLA style was designed by the Modern Language Association, and it has become the most popular college essay format for students writing papers for class. It was originally developed for students and researchers in the literature and language fields to have a standardized way of formatting their papers, but it is now used by people in all disciplines, particularly humanities. MLA is often the style teachers prefer their students to use because it has simple, clear rules to follow without extraneous inclusions often not needed for school papers. For example, unlike APA or Chicago styles, MLA doesn’t require a title page for a paper, only a header in the upper left-hand corner of the page.

MLA style doesn’t have any specific requirements for how to write your essay, but an MLA format essay will typically follow the standard essay format of an introduction (ending with a thesis statement), several body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

One of the nice things about creating your works cited for MLA is that all references are structured the same way, regardless of whether they’re a book, newspaper, etc. It’s the only essay format style that makes citing references this easy! Here is a guide on how to cite any source in MLA format. When typing up your works cited, here are a few MLA format essay rules to keep in mind:

• The works cited page should be the last paper of your paper.
• This page should still be double-spaced and include the running header of your last name and page number.
• It should begin with “Works Cited” at the top of the page, centered.
• Your works cited should be organized in alphabetical order, based on the first word of the citation.

APA Essay Format

APA stands for the American Psychological Association. This format type is most often used for research papers, specifically those in behavioral sciences (such as psychology and neuroscience) and social sciences (ranging from archeology to economics). Because APA is often used for more research-focused papers, they have a more specific format to follow compared to, say, MLA style.

All APA style papers begin with a title page, which contains the title of the paper (in capital letters), your name, and your institutional affiliation (if you’re a student, then this is simply the name of the school you attend). The APA recommends the title of your paper not be longer than 12 words.

After your title page, your paper begins with an abstract. The abstract is a single paragraph, typically between 150 to 250 words, that sums up your research. It should include the topic you’re researching, research questions, methods, results, analysis, and a conclusion that touches on the significance of the research. Many people find it easier to write the abstract last, after completing the paper.

After the abstract comes the paper itself. APA essay format recommends papers be short, direct, and make their point clearly and concisely. This isn’t the time to use flowery language or extraneous descriptions. Your paper should include all the sections mentioned in the abstract, each expanded upon.

Following the paper is the list of references used. Unlike MLA style, in APA essay format, every source type is referenced differently. So the rules for referencing a book are different from those for referencing a journal article are different from those referencing an interview. Here’s a guide for how to reference different source types in APA format . Your references should begin on a new page that says “REFERENCES” at the top, centered. The references should be listed in alphabetical order.

Chicago Essay Format

Chicago style (sometimes referred to as “Turabian style”) was developed by the University of Chicago Press and is typically the least-used by students of the three major essay style formats. The Chicago Manual of Style (currently on its 17th edition) contains within its 1000+ pages every rule you need to know for this style. This is a very comprehensive style, with a rule for everything. It’s most often used in history-related fields, although many people refer to The Chicago Manual of Style for help with a tricky citation or essay format question. Many book authors use this style as well.

Like APA, Chicago style begins with a title page, and it has very specific format rules for doing this which are laid out in the chart below. After the title page may come an abstract, depending on whether you’re writing a research paper or not. Then comes the essay itself. The essay can either follow the introduction → body → conclusion format of MLA or the different sections included in the APA section. Again, this depends on whether you’re writing a paper on research you conducted or not.

Unlike MLA or APA, Chicago style typically uses footnotes or endnotes instead of in-text or parenthetical citations. You’ll place the superscript number at the end of the sentence (for a footnote) or end of the page (for an endnote), then have an abbreviated source reference at the bottom of the page. The sources will then be fully referenced at the end of the paper, in the order of their footnote/endnote numbers. The reference page should be titled “Bibliography” if you used footnotes/endnotes or “References” if you used parenthetical author/date in-text citations.

Comparison Chart

Below is a chart comparing different formatting rules for APA, Chicago, and MLA styles.

How Should You Format Your Essay If Your Teacher Hasn’t Specified a Format?

What if your teacher hasn’t specified which essay format they want you to use? The easiest way to solve this problem is simply to ask your teacher which essay format they prefer. However, if you can’t get ahold of them or they don’t have a preference, we recommend following MLA format. It’s the most commonly-used essay style for students writing papers that aren’t based on their own research, and its formatting rules are general enough that a teacher of any subject shouldn’t have a problem with an MLA format essay. The fact that this style has one of the simplest sets of rules for citing sources is an added bonus!

What's Next?

Thinking about taking an AP English class? Read our guide on AP English classes to learn whether you should take AP English Language or AP English Literature (or both!)

Compound sentences are an importance sentence type to know. Read our guide on compound sentences for everything you need to know about compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.

Need ideas for a research paper topic? Our guide to research paper topics has over 100 topics in ten categories so you can be sure to find the perfect topic for you.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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25 Best Fonts For Reports and Professional Documents

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

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

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

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

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

Read on to find out more.

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

Best Fonts for Reports & Professional Documents

1. times new roman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also Read :

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

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

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

4. Garamond

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. Helvetica

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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9. Open Sans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12. Montserrat

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

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

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

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

13. Proxima Nova

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

15. Franklin Gothic

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

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

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

16. Century Gothic

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

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

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

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

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17. Baskerville

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

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

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

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

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

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

Explore the best alternatives to Helvetica & Helvetica Neue here.

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

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

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

20. Palatino

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

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

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

21. Rockwell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

23. Trebuchet MS

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

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

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

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

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

25. Source Sans Pro

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

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

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

Also Read : Best CSS Web Safe Fonts

Best Fonts for Reports – Recap

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

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

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

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

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

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