best font for thesis book

• Color Palettes
• Superhero Fonts
• Gaming Fonts
• Brand Fonts
• Fonts from Movies
• Similar Fonts
• What’s That Font
• Photoshop Resources
• Slide Templates
• Fast Food Logos
• Superhero logos
• Tech company logos
• Shoe Brand Logos
• Motorcycle Logos
• Grocery Store Logos
• Beer Brand Ads
• Car Brand Ads
• Fashion Brand Ads
• Fast Food Brand Ads
• Shoe Brand Ads
• Tech Company Ads
• Web and mobile design
• Digital art
• Motion graphics
• Infographics
• Photography
• Interior design
• Design Roles
• Tools and apps
• CSS & HTML
• Program interfaces
• Drawing tutorials

The Budweiser Logo History, Colors, Font,

Feast Your Eyes: Delicious Food Color

The Tecate Logo History, Colors, Font,

REM to PX Converter

Design Your Way is a brand owned by SBC Design Net SRL Str. Caminului 30, Bl D3, Sc A Bucharest, Romania Registration number RO32743054 But you’ll also find us on Blvd. Ion Mihalache 15-17 at Mindspace Victoriei

[email protected]

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.

The Pittsburgh Penguins Logo History, Colors, Font, And Meaning

The dallas stars logo history, colors, font, and meaning.

You may also like

Ad Impact: The 19 Best Fonts for Advertising

• Bogdan Sandu
• 20 December 2023

T-Shirt Typography: 30 Best Fonts for T-Shirts

• 21 December 2023

Great fonts for a PhD thesis – and terrible ones

There are thousands of fonts out there – which one should you choose for a great-looking PhD thesis? I will explain the differences between serif and sans-serif fonts, what ligatures are and why you shouldn’t use that fun free font you found on the internet.

Great fonts for a PhD thesis: Serif vs. sans-serif

As I explained in my Ultimate Guide to preparing a PhD thesis for printing , there are two basic kinds of fonts: Serif fonts and sans-serif fonts. Serif fonts have small lines – serifs – at the ends of all lines. Sans-serif fonts don’t have those lines. Compare these two, Palatino Linotype and Arial:

Serifs guide the reader’s eyes, making sure that they stay in the same line while reading a printed text. In turn, your reader’s brain won’t get tired so quickly and they can read for longer.

But there is another feature that many serif fonts have. Look at these three (which are all great fonts to use in your PhD thesis, btw):

If you look closely, you will see that serif fonts often have different stroke thicknesses within every letter. This is called “weight contrast”. A subtle weight contrast further improves legibility of a printed text. Hence, I recommend you use a serif font with a bit of a weight contrast for your main text.

Which serif font should you choose?

But whatever you do, this one thing is extremely important: Choose a font that offers all styles: regular, italics , bold , and bold italics . Since these four styles all need to be designed separately, many fonts don’t offer all of them. Especially bold italics is absent in most free internet fonts and even from many fonts that come with your operating system or word processor.

Also: In your bibliography and in-text citations (if you go with an author-year citation style) you will have to display author’s names from all over the world. Many of them will contain special letters. For example German umlauts (ä, ö, ü), accented letters used in lots of of languages, i.e. French or Spanish (à, é, ñ, etc.), and dozens of other special letters from all kinds of languages (ç, ı, ł, ø, etc.). Be aware that only a very limited number of fonts offer all of these!

If you have mathematical equations in your thesis that require more than +, – and =, your font choices are limited even further . After all, the vast majority of fonts do not offer special operators.

As you can see, these criteria severely limit your choice of font for the main text. Needless to say, they rule out free fonts you can download from dafont.com or 1001fonts.com . That is why I urge you to go with a classic font. To make things easier for you, here is a table with serif fonts that offer all the characters you could dream of:

Failsafe serif fonts for your PhD thesis

These fonts are heavily based on fonts that have been in use since the invention of the mechanical printing press in the 15th century. Hence, these types of fonts have been tried and tested for more than 500 years. Hard to argue with that!

But which of these fonts is The Best TM for a PhD thesis? That depends on how much text you have in your thesis vs. how many figures, tables, equations, etc. As I have noted in the table, fonts have different widths. Look at this image showing the same text in Times New Roman (TNR), Cambria, and Sitka Text; all at the same size:

Hence, setting entire pages of text in TNR will make the page look quite dense and dark. So, a thesis with a lot of text and few figures is best set in a wider font like Sitka Text. On the other hand, if you have a lot of figures, tables, etc., TNR is a good choice because it keeps paragraphs of text compact and therefore the page from looking too empty. Medium-width fonts like Cambria are a good compromise between the two.

To see some of these fonts in action, check out this example PhD thesis where I show all sorts of font combinations and page layouts.

When to use a sans-serif font in your PhD thesis

This covers serif fonts. But which sans-serif fonts are great for your PhD thesis? And when do you use them?

As mentioned above, serif fonts are good for the main text of your thesis. But titles and headings are a different story. There, a sans-serif font will look very nice. Plus, using a different font in your headings than in the main text will help the reader recognize when a new section begins.

Here are some examples for good sans-serif fonts:

Each of these fonts – Futura, Franklin Gothic Book, and Gill Sans – are wonderful for headings in a PhD thesis. Why? Because they are easily readable, well-balanced and don’t call undue attention to themselves. Also, they have many options: regular, light, medium, bold, extra bold, including italics for all of them. And most operating systems or word processors have them pre-installed.

The criteria for heading fonts are not nearly as strict as those for main text fonts. If you have Latin species names in your headings, make sure the font offers (bold) italics. If you need to display Greek letters in your headings, make sure the font offers those. Done.

However, there are some criteria for headings. Just for fun, let’s have a look at some sans-serif fonts that would be a bad choice for a thesis:

I’d like to explicitly state that these are wonderful, well-designed fonts – you just shouldn’t use them in a scientific document. Heattenschweiler is too narrow, Broadway has too much weight contrast and Aspergit Light is too thin. All of these things impair readability and might make your opponents squint at your headings. Of course, you will want to do everything in your power to make the experience of reading your thesis as pleasant a possible for your opponents!

How are these fonts great for my PhD thesis? They are boring!

Why yes, they are, thanks for noticing!

Seriously though, the fonts not being interesting is the point. Your PhD thesis is a scientific document showing your expertise in your field and your ability to do independent research. The content of your thesis, the science, should be the sole focus. A PhD thesis is not the place to show off your quirky personality by way of an illegible font.

However, you can infuse your personality into your thesis cover and chapter start pages. There, you can use a fun font, since you probably don’t have to display any special characters.

Choosing the right font is too much pressure? Contact me for help with your layout!

Don’t use fonts made for non-Latin alphabets (Cyrillic, Hanzi, etc.)

Every computer nowadays comes pre-installed with a number of fonts made for displaying languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet (Latin alphabet = The alphabet in which this very article is displayed). Prominent examples for languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet are Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, etc. Other examples include the Arabic, Brahmic, and Cyrillic script. But there are many more fonts for a myriad of non-Latin alphabets. These fonts were optimized to make the characters of their languages easily readable.

However (and this is why I’ve written this entire section) they usually also contain Latin characters to be able to display the occasional foreign word.

Hence, you might want to honour your roots by using a font in your thesis that was made for your native language, by someone from your home country. It is tempting, because all the Latin characters are there, right? I completely understand this wish, but I strongly advise against it since there are some serious drawbacks.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not throwing shade on these fonts, they are fantastic at what they were made for. Displaying long stretches of text in the Latin alphabet, however, is not one of those things. Let me explain why.

They don’t offer all necessary characters

Firstly, fonts made to display languages with a non-Latin alphabet contain the bare minimum of Latin characters. That is, the basic letters and the most important punctuation marks. Hence, they don’t have all those math operators and special characters I talked about in the section about serif fonts.

Also, the Latin characters in these fonts are usually sans-serif, so less suitable for long text.

But let’s say the non-Latin alphabet font you chose does offer all special characters and has serifs. Unfortunately, they are still not suitable to use in your PhD thesis, for the following reasons:

They are often too small or large for use with greek letters

Do you mention β-Mercaptoethanol or α-Histidin antibodies in your Materials and Methods? Or any other Greek letter? Since Latin characters are scaled differently in fonts made for non-Latin alphabets, Greek letters will not be the same size as the rest of the text anymore. For example, look at this text, where I rendered everything (I swear!) in the specified font size:

In the first panel (Cambria), the Greek letters are the same size and weight as the main text. As I have said, Cambria is one of the fonts explicitly recommended for your thesis. If you look closely at the enlarged line on the bottom of the panel, you can see that the alpha is the same height as the lower-case letters, whereas the beta is the same height as the upper-case letters. It looks neat and tidy.

However, by using a non-Latin font for your PhD thesis, you are asking for trouble.

In the second panel, I show Cordia New, a font for Thai script. At 12 pt, it is way smaller than the Latin font. The Greek letters – which are also at 12 pt! – stand out awkwardly. Also, Cordia New produces a line distance that is larger than it should be when using it for a text in the Latin alphabet.

In the last panel I show Microsoft YaHei for displaying Hanzi characters. Here, the Latin characters are larger. This leads to the Greek letters being too small. And, as you can see in the second and third lines of the paragraph of text, the line distance is quite narrow. However, the Greek letter β requires a regular line distance. So, it pushes the following line down, making the paragraph look uneven.

They don’t offer ligatures

Now, what on earth are ligatures? I could dive into the history of book printing here but I’ll spare you those details. In essence, Ligatures are two or more letters that are printed as one single glyph. Let me show you:

In the top line, you can see that the characters inside the boxes “melt” into each other. This single shape made out of several letter is called a ligature. They are mostly common with the small letter f. If you take a magnifying glass and look at the pages of a novel, you will quickly find these same ligatures. E-readers also display ligatures. Heck, even WhatsApp does it!

Ligatures also make the text easier to read. However, in order to display them, a font actually has to have the glyphs for the ligatures. And many fonts don’t. In order to find out whether a font you chose offers them, go to the character map of that font. (In Windows 10, simply click the windows logo in the corner of your screen and start typing the word “character”.) Pick a font in the drop-down menu. Now, search for the word “ligature” in the character map. If the map is empty after this, the font has no ligature glyphs.

All that being said, ligatures are not super important. I just wanted to mention them.

You can still use fonts made for non-Latin alphabets

If you want to honour your roots by way of a font, you can still do this. For example in your thesis title and/or for the chapter start pages.

In a word: Don’t go crazy with those fonts! Let your science do the talking. If you want to see what your thesis could look like with some of the fonts I recommended, check out the example PhD thesis .

Do you want to see a font combination that’s not in the example thesis? Contact me and I’ll set a few pages in your desired font, free of charge!

Click here for help with your PhD thesis layout!

Bedrijvsgegevens | About

Privacyverklaring | Privacy Policy

• How it works

What Is The Best Font For A Dissertation?

Published by Alvin Nicolas at April 9th, 2024 , Revised On April 9, 2024

For many students, embarking on a dissertation is a daunting task. Beyond the research, writing, and analysis , a seemingly insignificant detail can cause unexpected stress: font selection. While it might seem like a minor concern, the right font can significantly impact the readability, professionalism, and overall look of your dissertation and can highly influence the decision of the readers. 

This blog will help you in choosing the right font for your dissertation. Let’s explore!

Why Does Font Choice Matter?

While the content of your dissertation is paramount, the presentation also plays a crucial role. The chosen font can influence how easily your reader absorbs the information. A poorly chosen font can lead to eye strain, reduced comprehension, and even a negative first impression.

Here are some specific reasons why font choice matters:

• Readability: The primary function of your dissertation is to communicate your research effectively. A clear and readable font is essential for ensuring your reader can easily grasp the information presented.
• Professionalism: Certain fonts convey a sense of seriousness and formality, aligning with the academic tone of your dissertation.
• Consistency: Maintaining a consistent font throughout your dissertation creates a sense of unity and professionalism.

Key Factors To Consider When Choosing A Font

Before discussing the specific font recommendations, let’s explore some key factors to consider when making your decision:

University Guidelines

Many universities have specific guidelines regarding font choices for dissertations. Always refer to your university’s style guide or handbook to ensure you adhere to any established requirements.

Readability

Opt for fonts with clear letterforms, adequate spacing, and sufficient contrast between the font and background colour. Avoid decorative or script fonts that can be challenging to read.

Serif Vs Sans-Serif

Serif fonts, characterised by small lines extending from the ends of characters (e.g., Times New Roman), are generally considered more readable for extended reading, making them ideal for the body text of your dissertation. Sans-serif fonts lacking these serifs (e.g., Arial) can be suitable for headings or short text snippets.

Font Size & Line Spacing

Maintain a comfortable reading experience with an appropriate font size (typically 10-12 points) and line spacing (usually 1.15 or 1.5 lines).

Hire an Expert Writer

Proposal and dissertation orders completed by our expert writers are

• Formally drafted in academic style
• Plagiarism free
• 100% Confidential
• Never Resold
• Include unlimited free revisions
• Completed to match exact client requirements

Popular Font Choices For Dissertations

Now, let’s explore some popular font options that meet the criteria for dissertation writing:

Times New Roman

The classic academic font, Times New Roman, remains a widely accepted and safe choice for dissertations due to its readability and formal appearance.

Similar to Times New Roman, Georgia offers good readability with a slightly wider design, making it suitable for screen-based reading.

This elegant serif font adds a touch of sophistication while maintaining excellent readability.

A modern serif font, Cambria provides a clean and professional look often favoured for on-screen reading.

While not ideal for the body text due to its lack of serifs, Arial can be a good choice for headings and subheadings due to its clarity and clean lines.

Additional Tips for Font Selection

Here are some additional tips to ensure your font choice shines:

• Consistency is key: Maintain the same font throughout your dissertation, including body text, headings, subheadings, and captions.
• Avoid excessive font variations: Stick to one or two fonts, with variations reserved for specific purposes (e.g., different fonts for headings).
• Consider the overall design: Ensure your chosen font complements the overall visual style of your dissertation, including layout and graphics.

Frequently Asked Questions

What font should i use for my dissertation uk.

Use a clear and readable font like Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri for a UK dissertation. Most universities recommend a serif font like Times New Roman, size 12, for the main text, with clear distinctions for headings and subheadings. Always follow your institution’s guidelines for formatting and font selection.

What font should a dissertation be in?

Use a legible serif font such as Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri for a dissertation. Typically, the font size should be 12 points for the main text, with variations for headings and subheadings as specified by your institution’s guidelines. Consistency and readability are key for academic documents.

What size font should my dissertation be?

Your dissertation’s main text should generally be in a 12-point font size for readability and consistency. Headings and subheadings may vary, typically larger than the main text, to emphasise hierarchy and organisation. Always adhere to your institution’s specific formatting requirements for font sizes and styles to ensure compliance.

What font shall I use for my undergraduate dissertation?

For an undergraduate dissertation, using a clear and legible font like Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri is advisable. Aim for a font size of 12 points for the main text to ensure readability. Follow any specific formatting guidelines your university or department provides for consistency and professional presentation.

You May Also Like

Here we have discussed the foremost problems faced by international students in the UK with a focus on what can be done to overcome them.

We have identified the most common dissertation questionnaire mistakes made by researchers that need to be avoided for good dissertations and thesis

A dissertation is part of a Master’s or Bachelor’s course, whereas PHD thesis is frequently applied to a doctorate programme.

USEFUL LINKS

LEARNING RESOURCES

COMPANY DETAILS

• How It Works

+61 481607654

8 Best Fonts for Thesis Writing to Make It Presentable

Table Of Contents

How do font plays a critical role in thesis, 8 best fonts for thesis writing, tips to choose the best font for thesis, mistakes to avoid while choosing a font, how to format your thesis perfectly.

• Can’t Write a Thesis? Let Our Experts Do It for You

When your professor assigns you a thesis, he excepts it to be perfect at the time of submission. The textual content of the document is the utmost source of information. So, while creating content, you should take care of the font selection. Choosing the best font for the thesis provides an attractive appearance and preserves the aesthetic value of your document. Also, the font professionally presents information. Choosing font in both ways (either online or printed form) of the thesis is crucial. If you are submitting it online, then the font makes a difference in the readability. If you are providing it in the printed form, then the font reflects professionalism.

You May Like This: The Complete Guide to Breaking Down a 10000-Word Dissertation

Sometimes, it is questioned that why the font is necessary. Well, the font is as mandatory as the content. You should know that everything is in proper fonts   for the thesis.

• To highlight headings, you can use bold and stylish fonts.
• To highlight the subheadings, you can use italic and cursive fonts.
• The information that you want to convey must be in a simple and decent font.

This particular formula will grab the reader’s attention to your document. If you don’t focus on the font, then your document will look imprudent. It can create a bad impact on your professor. If you don't show creativity while writing, then the reader will get bored and won’t show interest in your document. So, make sure to always use different fonts in the thesis according to the needs. Now, let’s talk about some of the most appropriate fonts included in the thesis.

This Might Be Helpful: A to Z of Assignment Writing: Everything You Need to Know About It

A thesis can look presentable if you include appropriate fonts in it. The following fonts will create a positive impression on your professor. Let’s take a look:

• Times New Roman Times New Roman was particularly designed for Times Newspaper for London. This font has a separate and different value in a formal style. Most of the universities and colleges suggest students use this font in a document.
• Georgia Georgia font was designed in 1883, especially for Microsoft Corporation. This is the best font for the students who want to submit the document online. It is preferred for the elegant and small appearance for low-resolution screens.
• Serif Serif is originated from Roman from a font written on a stone. Earlier, this font was not accepted universally. The specialty of this font is that every alphabet has a small line or stroke attached to the end of the larger stroke.
• Garamond Garamond is usually used for book printing and body text. If you want to write the main body or long paragraphs, then you can use this font. It is simple and easy to read.
• Cambria Cambria is founded by Microsoft and later distributed with Windows and Office. This font is the easiest to read in a hurry because it contains spaces and proportions between the alphabets. This is suitable for the body and the long sentence.
• Century Gothic Century Gothic is basically in the geometric style released in 1881. This font has a larger height instead of other fonts. If the university allows you to choose the font of your own choice, you can go for this one.
• Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype font is highly legible for online documents. It enhances the quality of the letter when displayed on the screen. This font is majorly used for books, periodicals, and catalogs.
• Lucida Bright Lucida Bright has a unique quality that the text looks larger at smaller point sizes also. This font can fit words on a single line. To write a thesis, you can choose this font easily.

After getting brief knowledge about the fonts, let's now come to the tips to choose the best font for the thesis. Here are some major key points that you should follow while choosing a font.

• Make sure your font looks attractive.
• It should match your tone.
• Headings and subheadings must be highlighted.
• It should not look congested.
• Avoid choosing complicated or fancy fonts.

Take a Look: How to Write a Good Thesis Statement for an Essay? Best Tips & Examples

Students make some mistakes while choosing a font, which the professor dislikes the most. So, to avoid those, keep the below points in mind.

• Don’t choose fonts on your likes and dislikes.
• Put the reader's preference first and then choose the font.
• Avoid too many fonts as they make the work look unorganized.
• Make sure all fonts match your document instead of making it look like a disaster.
• Choose different fonts for titles, subtitles, paragraphs.

When preparing the thesis for submission, students must follow strict formatting requirements. Any deviations in these requirements may lead to the rejection of the thesis.

• The language should be perfect.
• The length of the thesis should be divided appropriately among the sections.
• The page size, margins, and spacing on the page should be correct.
• The font and point size should be displayed correctly.

Can't Write a Thesis? Let Our Experts Do It for You

The experts of Assignment Prime warmly welcome everyone who seeks help with thesis writing service . A thesis is one of the toughest academic papers to write for students. It takes a great amount of time, rigorous research, and perfect writing skills to complete it. To make this easy for you, the experts are here to help you write the thesis and the font selection for every section.

We are known for offering unmatched assistance with thesis and dissertation writing to students across the globe. Our professionals deliver a well-researched and informative academic paper before the deadline. We also provide help to students in research, topic selection, editing, proofreading, etc. So, stop searching for help and quickly start ordering without any delay to avail the best features of Assignment Prime . We are waiting to serve you with the best!

You may like this : How to write a discussion in dissertation

To Make Your Work Original

Check your work against paraphrasing & get a free Plagiarism report!

Check your work against plagiarism & get a free Plagiarism report!

Get citations & references in your document in the desired style!

Make your content free of errors in just a few clicks for free!

Generate plagiarism-free essays as per your topic’s requirement!

FREE Features

• Topic Creation USD 4.04 FREE
• Outline USD 9.75 FREE
• Unlimited Revisions USD 21.6 FREE
• Editing/Proofreading USD 29.26 FREE
• Formatting USD 8.36 FREE
• Bibliography USD 7.66 FREE

Get all these features for

USD 84.3 FREE

Thesis Statement Writing: How Crucial is it? How to Write? & More

All About Short Essay Writing [Examples Included]

How to Write a Letter of Reference with Templates?

Experts' Guidance on How to Conduct Nike’s SWOT Analysis

Avail the Best Assignment Writing Services in Just One Tap!

Add "5% extra off on app"

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Know more

Please rotate your device

We don't support landscape mode yet. Please go back to portrait mode for the best experience

Looking to publish? Meet your dream editor, designer and marketer on Reedsy.

Find the perfect designer for your next book

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Guides • Book Design

Last updated on Aug 09, 2022

10 Brilliant Fonts for Your Book Layout

It’s easy to forget that the book fonts we see today are the results of hundreds of years of design evolution. From designs emulating handwriting to the crisp, clean serif designs you’ll find in most publications, modern fonts are the culmination of centuries of people combining form and function into something magnificent, but that its users barely even notice anymore. Of course, as an author, you can’t get away with this same indifference: font selection is an essential step to designing your book — both inside and out .

Free course: Book Design 101

Learn about formatting and typesetting professional-grade interiors in this course on the fundamentals of book design. Get started now.

What is a font?

Before we get started, let’s clear up a terminological detail. True typography experts will be quick to point out how the term ‘font’ is commonly misused in everyday, non-technical conversation.

For typographers, ‘typefaces’ are different lettering designs, like Times New Roman and Arial. ‘Fonts’, on the other hand, are size, weight and style variations on typefaces, like 12 pt Times New Roman bold and 14 pt Arial italic. However, for convenience’s sake, we’re going to be using the term ‘font’ to refer to both the overall styles of type and their variations.

How to choose a book font

Choosing the 'right' font to use for a book's  body matter  often comes down to individual taste. With the exception of a few universally reviled typefaces —  cough cough, Comic Sans  — almost any legible font can be considered. Having said that, there are a few things that any discerning book designer will want to keep in mind.

It needs to be readable

Imagine a beautiful chair . It may be the most gorgeous thing to look at, but if it’s uncomfortable to sit on, then what use is it really? The same goes for fonts. Though you obviously want your font to look nice on the page, it also needs to do its job and be easily readable so that readers can immerse themselves in your words without getting distracted or having to decipher what things say. 

To serif or not to serif?

Supposedly, serifs lead the eye from one letter to the next, making the reading experience easier and less tiring — although there isn’t actually much scientific evidence in favor of this. But as a result of this theory, you'll commonly see serif fonts used for large bodies of text while 'sans serif' fonts — literally,  without serifs  — are usually reserved for shorter bits of text like chapter titles and headings.

All this said, humans are adaptable and your reader should be able to adjust to pretty much any font after a chapter or so. If there is a font choice that you think would really elevate or set your work apart, feel free to choose novelty over convention.

Style is still important 

To draw your reader in, you’ll want a modern, stylish font that will appeal — but this is pretty subjective, so again, go with one that you like. Your font choice should also be influenced by the contents of your book. You can get a bit creative with titles and headings that capture the spirit or genre of your book a little better. Or even go all out and do something funky with the body text — as long as it makes sense for the layout of your book . Many of the so-called font rules can be broken if the situation really calls for it. 

Use fonts to tell a story

For example, the novel Interior Chinatown tackles the idea of typecasting and stereotyping in the film industry. To give it the feel of a Hollywood movie, the book is written in screenplay format using Courier as the standard font.

Needless to say, this is an unusual choice for a novel — using a specific font that is often strongly advised against for book typesetting. But in the case of Interior Chinatown , Courier is a very intentional choice serving a particular purpose and contributing to the impact of the book itself. This is a prime instance in which typical font conventions can be eschewed in favor of effect. 

Pro tip: Some sites such as MyFonts allow you to test samples of text in a particular font before you take the plunge and buy it. This is especially useful when choosing among very similar fonts, as you may not be able to pick up subtle differences until you see them in a larger block of text.

10 brilliant book fonts

1. garamond.

If this font were a character: Garamond, a 1920s detective lurking in the shadows of a New York alleyway, waiting for a corrupt district attorney to leave a mob-connected nightclub — right at home in a suspenseful thriller .

If this font were a character: Caslon, a no-nonsense bespectacled professor, who still gets visits from ex-students years down the line because they feel like they owe all their success to him. Clear and reliable, Caslon is great for nonfiction .

3. Baskerville 

If this font were a character: Baskerville , lady of the manor, runs the house like a tight ship. Servants quiver under her iron gaze — but her icy exterior melts away when she sits down at her easel. Baskerville clips down the hallways of a transporting piece of historical fiction.

If this font were a character: Sabon, a shy hopeless romantic, steals a glance at the sweetheart who doesn’t know of her true feelings — before finally plucking up the courage to go and say ‘hello’. Hence springs a sweet and dreamy romance .

If this font were a character: Dante, a mischievous teen who just pressed the forbidden big red button in the control room. The spacecraft lurches. Dante dares to take you on a rollicking sci-fi adventure .

Speaking of which, want to take readers on an otherworldly adventure? Check out our post on how to write science fiction ! 

If this font were a character: Bembo, a wanderlusting photographer dining alone in the shade of a palm tree, a third helping of fried fish already on its way — but can it truly fill the chasm inside of him?  Bembo is a great choice for some evocative literary fiction .

If this font were a character: Janson — a wise old soul who, after years living the fast life of a musician, has traded in the trumpet for a trowel, growing fruit and vegetables in abundance. Take a trip down memory lane with Janson in your memoir .

If this font were a character: Bison, a large and in-charge CEO, feet propped up on the desk, looking out across the city from the 90th floor. Bison brings a sleek and confident touch to headers and titles.

9. Captain Comic

If this font were a character: Captain Comic, a dauntless hero, scales a clocktower in the dead of night — aware of what danger could await at the top, but fearless nonetheless. Captain Comic reigns supreme in an action-packed graphic novel .

10. Pequena Pro

If this font were a character: Pequena Pro, a talking hippo, is on the lookout for food (as always) when she comes across a family of meerkats stuck on the bank, and offers to help them cross the river. Pequena Pro is delightful for a children’s book .

How to access book fonts 

The simplest way to get your hands on the most suitable fonts for your book is to work with a professional typographer. They will have access to font libraries and many of these experts can even  create bespoke typefaces , should your project call for it.

Make your book font-astic!

The best typographers are on Reedsy. Sign up for free and meet them.

Learn how Reedsy can help you craft a beautiful book.

But if you take the DIY approach to formatting your book , then you’ll need to get hold of fonts yourself. Here’s what to know if you’re taking this route:

You don't buy a font, you license it.  If you're going to be printing physical copies as well as publishing ebooks, you need to confirm that the font can be used in print and not just in digital work (which some are).

Fonts come in bundles.  Quick switch to typography terminology here — to use all fonts of a certain typeface (for example Caslon Regular, Caslon Bold, and Caslon Italic) you need to buy the whole family of Caslon fonts, either individually or as part of a bundle.

Free isn't always good.  Free font download links can sometimes carry viruses. Also, bear in mind that the individual offering the free font might not actually have the right to distribute it — and there  could be consequences for using them .

On that note, here some trustworthy sites that offer both free and paid fonts:

• Google Fonts

⚠️ Whether you download your fonts for free or purchase them, make sure to read the Terms and Conditions carefully so that you understand exactly what you are and aren’t allowed to do with them.

All fonts have a time and a place — yes, even Comic Sans — but that place may not be in your book. As you undertake this critical selection process, make sure that you’re thinking about the specificities of your book and precisely what you want your font to achieve.

Join a community of over 1 million authors

Reedsy is more than just a blog. Become a member today to discover how we can help you publish a beautiful book.

The Ultimate FREE Book-Formatting App

Try Reedsy's Book Editor: the free formatting app used by thousands of authors every day.

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Enter your email or get started with a social account:

• Langson Library
• Science Library
• Grunigen Medical Library
• Law Library
• Connect From Off-Campus
• Accessibility
• Gateway Study Center

Email this link

Thesis / dissertation formatting manual (2024).

• Filing Fees and Student Status
• Submission Process Overview
• Electronic Thesis Submission
• Paper Thesis Submission
• Formatting Overview
• Fonts/Typeface
• Pagination, Margins, Spacing
• Paper Thesis Formatting
• Preliminary Pages Overview
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures (etc.)
• Acknowledgements
• Text and References Overview
• Figures and Illustrations
• Using Your Own Previously Published Materials
• Using Copyrighted Materials by Another Author
• Open Access and Embargoes
• Copyright and Creative Commons
• Ordering Print (Bound) Copies
• Tutorials and Assistance
• FAQ This link opens in a new window

Selecting a Font (Typeface)

Be consistent in the use of font/typeface throughout your manuscript. All text material must be in the same font/typeface; all headings and figure/table titles/captions must be in a consistent typeface.

Please select a font and size that is highly legible and will reproduce clearly. Ornate or decorative fonts such as script, calligraphy, gothic, italics, or specialized art fonts are not acceptable. For electronic submissions, embedded fonts are required.

Any symbols, equations, figures, drawings, diacritical marks, or lines that cannot be typed, and therefore are drawn, must be added in permanent black ink.

Below are suggested fonts and sizes.

Establish and follow a consistent pattern for layout of all headings.  All headings should use the same font size, font weight, typeface, etc.

For example: center all major headings; place secondary headings at least two lines below major headings.

Typeface/Printing Quality (Paper Submissions Only)

If you are submitting your manuscript on paper, printer quality is critical to produce a clean, clear image. You are strongly urged to use a laser printer, as ink jet and line printers generally do not produce fully clear, legible results. Dot matrix-type printers are not acceptable.

• << Previous: Formatting Overview
• Next: Pagination, Margins, Spacing >>
• Last Updated: Feb 20, 2024 2:09 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/gradmanual

Off-campus? Please use the Software VPN and choose the group UCIFull to access licensed content. For more information, please Click here

Software VPN is not available for guests, so they may not have access to some content when connecting from off-campus.

5 fonts that add credibility and professionalism to scientific research

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[bra_divider height=’40’]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Garamond – “Second best font after Helvetica”

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

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

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

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

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

[bra_border_divider top=’10’ bottom=’10’]

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

Sources and Further reading:

Arial vs Helvetica – fonts.com

Research on font trustworthiness: Baskerville vs. Comic Sans

Caslon typeface

History of Garamond

Cell Press Figure Guide

Nature -Guide to preparing final artwork

Science Magazine: Preparing your manuscript

14 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How i download these font types?

Study at Cambridge

About the university, research at cambridge.

• Events and open days
• Fees and finance
• Student blogs and videos
• Why Cambridge
• Course directory
• How to apply
• Fees and funding
• Frequently asked questions
• International students
• Continuing education
• Executive and professional education
• Courses in education
• How the University and Colleges work
• Visiting the University
• Term dates and calendars
• Video and audio
• Find an expert
• Publications
• Global Cambridge
• Public engagement
• Give to Cambridge
• For current students
• For business
• Colleges & departments
• Libraries & facilities
• Museums & collections
• Email & phone search
• Computer Laboratory
• Internal information

Typographic resources

• Thesis formatting

Department of Computer Science and Technology

• Academic staff
• Support staff
• Contract researchers
• Fellows & affiliates
• PhD students
• Wednesday Seminar Series
• Wheeler Lectures
• women@cl 10th Anniversary
• Computer Laboratory 75th Anniversary
• Shopping and leisure
• Library induction
• Electronic resources
• Virtual journals shelf
• Local services
• Lab technical reports
• External technical reports
• Resource lists
• Reading lists
• Maps and directions
• Contact information
• Group Meetings
• Project ideas for current students
• Projects and research topics
• [no title found]
• Selected Publications
• Open source components
• Contact Details
• Applying to do a PhD
• Project suggestions
• Other information
• Reading Club
• Postgraduate opportunities
• Programming, Logic, Semantics
• Projects and topics
• Security Seminar Series
• Mailing lists
• Research Projects
• Student Projects
• Digital Technology Group
• Research Admin
• PhD applications
• Graduate Admissions Prospectus
• Funding deadlines
• MPhil in Advanced Computer Science
• Premium Research Studentship
• Student Administration
• Induction for M.Phil and Part III students
• Part III and ACS projects
• Part IA CST
• Part IB CST
• Part II CST
• Lecturer index
• Instructions for lecturers
• Examination dates
• Examination results
• Examiners' reports
• Plagiarism and collusion
• Purchase of calculators
• Data Retention Policy
• Past exam papers
• Guidance on deadlines
• Part III Assessment
• MPhil Assessment
• Student Complaint Procedure
• Short form timetable
• Part II supervisions overview
• Part II sign-up dates
• Notes on supervising
• Supervisor support
• Advice for students visiting Cambridge
• UROP internships
• Previous years
• Briefing document (Pink Book)
• Important dates
• Phase 1 report
• Back-up advice
• Resources Declaration
• Studies Involving Human Participants
• Failure to submit proposal
• Selection Tips
• Declaration of originality
• Submission of dissertation
• IP ownership
• Diploma model projects
• Older project suggestions
• Supervising Notes
• Overseer Briefing Notes
• Directors of Studies
• Managed Cluster Service
• Part III and MPhil machines
• Online services
• Installing Linux
• Microsoft Azure for Education Membership
• Neil Wiseman, 1934–1995
• Roger Needham, 1935–2003
• David Wheeler, 1927–2004
• Karen Spärck Jones, 1935–2007
• Judith Ann Bailey, 1934–2008
• Robin Milner, 1934–2010
• Sir Maurice Wilkes, 1913–2010
• Michael JC Gordon, 1948–2017
• Richard Gibbens, 1962–2018
• Ross J Anderson, 1956–2024
• An introduction to our computing facilities
• Information for new PhD students
• Information for new staff
• Information for visitors
• Information for hosts of visitors
• General information
• Induction Guidelines
• Specialist resources
• Printing and scanning
• The CL network
• SSH access to the CL systems
• Supported platforms
• Generic Unix/Linux information
• Web servers and sites
• The RT ticketing system
• Lecture theatre AV
• Departmental policies
• Meeting rooms
• Personnel information
• Staff training
• Wiseman prize
• General health and safety
• Environment
• H&S policies & committees
• Risk assessment
• Laser safety
• Useful links
• Index of Health & Safety pages
• PhD supervisors
• Graduate Advisers
• First Year Report: PhD Proposal
• Second Year Report: Dissertation Schedule
• Third Year Report: Progress Statement
• Fourth Year Report: the last year
• Papers and conferences
• Submitting your dissertation
• Exemption from University Composition Fees
• Leave to work away, holidays and intermission
• Researcher Development
• Application deadlines
• List of PhD thesis
• Graduate Students' Forum
• PAT, recycling and Building Services
• Preparing Tripos exam questions in LaTeX
• Information for CST examiners
• Information for Directors of Studies
• ACS module definition
• Providing advice to incoming ACS students
• ACS interviewing and admissions
• Outreach material
• Faculty Board
• Degree Committee
• Graduate Education
• Tripos Management
• Health & Safety
• IT Strategy
• Equality and Diversity
• Research Staff
• Staff–Student
• Graduate Students
• Buildings and Environment
• Discontinued committees
• Building Services
• Access and security
• Care of the WGB
• Facilities in offices
• Energy & Environment
• West Cambridge Site
• Leaving the department
• New arrivals
• Specialist resources ➥
• System administration
• Roles and responsibilities
• Information for staff
• Health and safety
• PhD resources
• Teaching resources
• William Gates Building

PhD thesis formatting

There is no official pre-made departmental or University-wide style template for PhD theses. Some argue that learning (and advancing!) the art of beautifully typesetting a thesis is a crucial part of getting a PhD.

Here are some practical recommendations, examples, and useful starting points.

Most PhD authors in the Computer Laboratory prefer LaTeX as their typesetting system (under both Linux or Windows), mainly because of its

• excellent and yet unmatched support for mathematical formulae;
• good support for managing bibliographic references;
• good support for high-quality typography;
• easy integration with software-engineering tools (make, revision control, etc.);
• very safe and robust handling of large documents;
• long-term stability;
• comprehensive free tool support.

A common approach is to use the report style, with a suitable title page added, margins changed to make good use of the A4 format, and various other changes to suit submission requirements and individual tastes (e.g., other fonts).

For preparing publication-quality diagrams, some of the most powerful and popular tools used include:

• PGF/TikZ – the probably most sophisticated drawing package for LaTeX
• matplotlib – Matlab-style function plotting in Python

Official requirements

There used to be detailed Student Registry PhD format requirements , regarding font sizes and line spacing, but most Degree Committees have dropped these, recognizing that they were mainly motivated by past typewriter conventions. The rules left are now mainly about the word count .

In particular, it is no longer necessary for dissertations to be printed single sided or in “one-and-a-half spaced type”. If you still like to increase the line spacing, for easier proofreading, you can achieve this in LaTeX by placing into the preamble the line “ \usepackage{setspace}\onehalfspacing ”.

Recommendations

One Cambridge thesis-binding company, J.S. Wilson & Son , recommend on their web page to leave 30 mm margin on the spine and 20 mm on the other three sides of the A4 pages sent to them. About a centimetre of the left margin is lost when the binder stitches the pages together.

Write your thesis title and section headings in “sentence case”, that is use the same capitalization that you would have used in normal sentences (capitalize only the first word, proper nouns and abbreviations). Avoid the US-style “title case” that some conference-proceedings publishers require.

• Sentence case is normal typographic practice in the UK (see any UK-published newspaper, magazine, journals such as Nature , etc.).
• The catalogues of both the University Library thesis collection and our departmental Technical Report series record titles this way, and you don't want the cataloguers mess with your title capitalization when your thesis finally reaches them.
• It preserves useful information about the correct capitalization of any names or technical terms used.

Page numbers

Use a single page-number sequence for all pages in your thesis, i.e. do not use a separate sequence of Roman numerals for front-matter (title page, abstract, acknowledgements, table of contents, table of figure). In LaTeX that means using the report style, not the book style.

• PDF viewers number pages continuously starting from 1, and using anything else as printed page numbers causes confusion.
• This will save you some reformatting when submitting your thesis as a techreport .

Bibliographic references

If you use purely-numeric bibliographic references, do not forget to still mention authors’ surnames, as a courtesy to both the authors and your readers. Also, try to add the exact page number on which the quoted point is found in the reference; LaTeX supports this really well. (“suggested by Crowcroft and Kuhn [42,p107]”)

Technical Report submission

After a thesis has been approved by the examiners, the author normally submits it for publication as a Computer Laboratory Technical Report .

It is a good idea to read early on the submission guidelines for technical reports , as this may reduce the need to change the formatting later.

If you want to minimize any changes needed between your submitted thesis and the corresponding technical report version, then – in addition to applying all the above advice – you can

• make page 1 the title page,
• make page 2 the required declaration of originality,
• make page 3 the summary, and
• choose a layout suitable for double-sided printing (required for techreport, since 2010 also allowed for final PhD submission).

This way, there is a very high chance that turning your thesis into a techreport could be as simple as replacing pages 1 and 2 with the standard Technical Report title page (which the techreport editor can do for you).

More information

• The Computer Laboratory house style page explains where to find the University identifier that many put on the title page of their thesis.
• Markus Kuhn’s simple PhD thesis template ( snapshot ) is just one possible starting point.
• The cam-thesis LaTeX class is a collaborative effort to maintain a Cambridge PhD thesis template for Computer Laboratory research students, initiated by Jean Martina, Rok Strniša, and Matej Urbas.
• Effective scientific electronic publishing – Markus Kuhn’s notes on putting scientific publications onto the web, especially for LaTeX/LNCS users.
• International Standard ISO 7144 Presentation of theses and similar documents (1986) contains also some general guidelines for formatting dissertations that may be of use.
• University A-Z
• Contact the University
• Accessibility
• Freedom of information
• Terms and conditions
• Undergraduate
• Spotlight on...
• About research at Cambridge

In our font studio’s 10-year journey, we’ve designed 1.500.000+ glyphs. Try out TypeType fonts online !

We Have a Digital Font Catalog! Looking through our typefaces has become even more convenient. PDF Catalog of TypeType Fonts

Use font subscription! The full font library of 75+ fonts will always be at hand. See more

• Sans Serif fonts
• Serif fonts
• Display fonts
• Script fonts
• Slab Serif fonts
• Variable fonts
• Font tester
• Font licensing
• Font subscription
• Custom fonts
• Cyrillization
• Agency partnership
• Fonts in use
• Typography terms
• About TypeType

Looking for free fonts?

• TypeType fonts
• Work with fonts

Best Fonts for Books: How to Choose

• The font's role in book design

What font is better for book printing?

1. the idea of the book and its content., 2. watchfulness..

• 3. The type of paper for book printing. 

4. Audience.

5. technical specifications., typeface category, text typeface, 1. readability., 2. quality., 3. neutrality., display typeface, best fonts for book printing and design, text typefaces.

Web and printing in typography are two different worlds. At least, they are often presented this way.

In reality, many typefaces can be used in both domains. To understand what typeface to choose, it is important to know the differences between book fonts and web fonts.

This article covers the topic of fonts for books and how to choose the best typeface for book design, magazines, or any other printed material.

The font’s role in book design

Everyone has their own image of a “book”. The first thing that comes to mind is likely a vivid cover. Inside, there will be pages with text and, probably, illustrations. But the main thing in most books is certainly the text. Through the text, readers receive information and follow the story’s narrative.

The font for book printing serves as a link between the text and the reader’s attention. To make the text legible and provide comfort for the eyes, a designer should choose a suitable typeface.  

The font sets the mood, provokes associations within the design, and helps place emphasis on various elements. If the font choice is unfortunate, the text will be hard to read, and the eyes will get tired soon. 

Several things influence the perception of the font in a book or any other printed material: compatibility of styles and fonts, the chosen point size, tracking, and the chosen weight of the font styles. 

When creating a book layout, a designer must choose the best typeface option to fully embody the book’s concept. At the same time, they have to consider the format of the future publication, the type of paper for printing, and the target audience.

All these criteria are also essential as they help better perceive the content of the printed material. 

A designer tasked with book layout for the first time will have to encounter the peculiarities specific to book design. 

Likely, the layout will not turn out perfect immediately, but you will improve your skills over time. 

The main thing is to understand what to pay closer attention to during the work.

Obviously, it is not necessary to read each book you are going to design till the end. However, it is essential to understand what exactly you are dealing with. A fiction novel, non-fiction from a modern author, technical literature, or children’s book. You can ask for the synopsis from the author or publishing house you work with. 

Choose a typeface keeping in mind the idea of the project.

It is challenging to choose a suitable typeface even if you already have all the details about the book concept. Look for similar projects that you like, make mood boards, and analyze the utilized fonts. By the way, do not ignore the examples that seem flawed to you. It is helpful to study them and develop your understanding of effective and ineffective design. The more examples you analyze, the easier your work will be.

3. The type of paper for book printing. 

There exist many paper types. Even for an experienced designer, it is rather challenging to predict how a font will look printed on a specific type. The best option is to test the typefaces you like by printing out small portions of text. If it is not possible for you, go to a bookstore and look at how different typefaces look on certain types of paper.

Typefaces used in children’s books differ from those used for magazine design. Analyze the publication’s audience and keep this knowledge in mind while choosing the typeface.

The text typeface must be readable and neutral. However, it may be too dull for the cover. Pay attention to what influences text perception: font size, kerning (the amount of space between characters), weight, and legibility. The typeface must fulfill its primary objectives. Display typefaces are used for headings and serve to convey the mood of the text and attract attention, and text typefaces do not interfere with reading and serve to make it convenient.

When choosing a typeface, rely on your feelings, knowledge, and other designers’ work examples. 

After taking care of the concept of the book and analyzing similar projects, it is time to choose the appropriate category of typeface. 

We will focus on the two most popular ones: serifs and sans serifs. 

Serif, or Antiqua, is a typeface with serifs and high contrast. These typefaces can possess various personalities. Serifs based on historical samples can be used in biographies or literature dedicated to a particular era. Elegant, high-contrast serifs with expressive details are well-suited for headings and blocks in a larger point size. Serifs with a more versatile personality could be used in more contexts.

Sans serifs are typefaces without serifs and with low contrast. Despite being associated with web design, sans serifs are also well-suited for contemporary book printing, whether it is children’s books, popular science books, or non-fiction. 

Any typeface contains many font styles in the font family. Although they will all have the same or similar proportions, each font style will look different in printing. It is possible to use several font styles from one family. For example, you can type the main text blocks using the regular font style and use italics or various weights to highlight key points. 

The standard book font is the one that is used to type the main body text. The reader’s convenience in engaging with the content of the publication depends on choosing the appropriate typeface.

There can be many criteria for choosing the text typeface, but we will only focus on the main ones.

The key characteristic of the text typeface. For the text to be readable, it must be neutral. That is why choosing typefaces without distinct serifs and display details is better. They should have moderate contrast and proportions.

The font’s technical features may either improve the font’s perception in printing or spoil all your hard work. Printing makes each little flaw stand out, whether it is an uneven spacing between letter pairs or defects in outline building. Choose typefaces with detailed outlines and good kerning made by trusted studios.

The character of the text typeface should suit the overall concept, but its visual peculiarities must not be too bold. The reader should be able to feel the emotion the typeface conveys but only subconsciously. 

Choose the typeface according to your budget but do not try to save on its quality.

Display typeface has an expressive personality and is used in large sizes for headings, covers, and title pages. Such typeface contains geometrical elements, like distinctive serifs, visual compensators, and other design choices.

The display font in the book design is responsible for the emotional part. Choose it according to the concept of the book and your own watchfulness. The font must attract attention and suit the main idea of the book. 

On the TypeType website, it is possible to use special tags as hints to choose a typeface with the necessary mood. Find the words that would reflect the concept of the book.

As a rule, the font size is agreed upon in advance with the publishing house. It depends on the book’s format, line measure, body text volume, and audience. Remember that different font families of the same point size may significantly vary in the amount of space they take up.

As a rule, children’s books are printed in larger point size, and pocket editions have smaller one. 

The largest point size is used for the cover, headings, and title page if needed. For that, a display font of the 14 point size or more is used.

In the body text, the font is set in sizes ranging from 6 to 16 points. 

Before designing, study the style guides and the publishing house recommendations.

We have chosen the best typefaces for designing books and other publications. Choose the one that suits your project well. 

Let us start with a selection of typefaces for the body text design. We have chosen the best ones in readability, character neutrality, and versatility.

Text serifs 

TT Livret Text

Modern serif that is pleasant and convenient to use for layouts. The typeface was originally designed as a text one, so it possesses all the necessary features of a book typeface. It is part of a big family where all the fonts go well with one another.

A typeface with a classic and serious nature.

TT Norms® Pro Serif

A serif that accompanies the sans serif TT Norms® Pro in the font pair. The perfect book font.

TT Jenevers

Dutch serif with asymmetric serifs and a display set. 

Text sans serifs

TT Wellingtons

A Humanist sans serif with smooth shapes.

TT Norms® Pro

The bestseller that has become popular because of its versatility and aesthetic shapes. It is ideally suited for any domain: from web design to printed books, including literature for children.

Display typefaces

Attractive typefaces with stunning visual choices for headings and cover design. 

TT Livret Subhead и Display

Modern serif with moderate and high contrast. An elegant typeface with serifs. It accompanies a typeface with the same name in a pair but also perfectly fits other text typefaces.

A functional sans serif for elegant display headings.

TT Ramillas

An exquisite typeface with high contrast and unusually shaped serifs. It contains a font family with soft and gentle graphics.

TT Backwards

An unusual typeface with a retro aesthetic.

Choosing the perfect typeface for book design is a challenging task. 

Rely on your experience, get inspired by the experiences of other designers, and always try something new. 

If you would like to know more about book fonts, watch our webinars . Remember, there is a suitable typeface for every book.

Latest publications

25+ best gaming fonts for your projects in 2024.

Choose the best gaming fonts from our extensive typeface collection to level up your video game design projects. Finding a good font for your game is essential because cool fonts infuse your game with individuality. However, fonts unsuitable for games can seriously compromise the gaming experience.

Icons & Illustrations in Fonts: What are they, and what’s their purpose?

In addition to the base set of letters, marks, and symbols, most typefaces also have other graphic elements.What does their appearance depend on? How and why are they designed? What variations do they come in? In this article, we will focus on these questions and showcase the most captivating icons and illustrations from TypeType typefaces.

20+ Best Thin Fonts in 2024: Slim and Light Fonts for Your Elegant Design

Looking for the best thin font for your new design project? Explore and take advantage of our skinny, light, and thin typeface collection. Each of these fonts available on the market will make your designs stand out. These thin-line fonts perfectly match various printed media and digital projects.

UniversiTTy: Lesson 1. Typeface Categories

This article is not an ordinary one. If you have not heard about it yet, we have launched a new project for everyone who is in love with fonts. As part of this initiative, we will release articles on typography regularly. Each article of the series will explore one useful subject. The main thing is that you will not only immerse yourself in the industry but also meet our wonderful TypeType team of typography experts as they share their knowledge and experience. 

Monospaced Fonts in Design and Coding

Monospaced fonts are actively gaining popularity among designers. What is even more interesting is that the scope of their application is also expanding. The times when fonts like these were only used for coding have gone. Today monospaced fonts adorn the pages of magazines, the packages of popular brands, signs and menus, websites, and more.

TypeType Online Store: We Accept Card Payments for Your Convenience

We put much effort and love into designing each font, and we’re excited to bring you a convenient and user-friendly way to easily purchase our fonts from anywhere in the world, whenever you want. Now you can pay for your purchases with credit cards, which makes the process significantly smoother and quicker.

Thesis and Dissertation Guide

• « Thesis & Dissertation Resources
• The Graduate School Home

• Introduction
• Copyright Page
• Dedication, Acknowledgements, Preface (optional)
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Symbols

Non-Traditional Formats

Font type and size, spacing and indentation, tables, figures, and illustrations, formatting previously published work.

• Internet Distribution
• Open Access
• Registering Copyright
• Using Copyrighted Materials
• Use of Your Own Previously Published Materials
• Submission Steps
• Submission Checklist
• Sample Pages

II. Formatting Guidelines

All copies of a thesis or dissertation must have the following uniform margins throughout the entire document:

• Left: 1″ (or 1 1/4" to ensure sufficient room for binding the work if desired)
• Right: 1″
• Bottom: 1″ (with allowances for page numbers; see section on Pagination )
• Top: 1″

Exceptions : The first page of each chapter (including the introduction, if any) begins 2″ from the top of the page. Also, the headings on the title page, abstract, first page of the dedication/ acknowledgements/preface (if any), and first page of the table of contents begin 2″ from the top of the page.

Non-traditional theses or dissertations such as whole works comprised of digital, artistic, video, or performance materials (i.e., no written text, chapters, or articles) are acceptable if approved by your committee and graduate program. A PDF document with a title page, copyright page, and abstract at minimum are required to be submitted along with any relevant supplemental files.

Fonts must be 10, 11, or 12 points in size. Superscripts and subscripts (e.g., formulas, or footnote or endnote numbers) should be no more than 2 points smaller than the font size used for the body of the text.

Space and indent your thesis or dissertation following these guidelines:

• The text must appear in a single column on each page and be double-spaced throughout the document. Do not arrange chapter text in multiple columns.
• New paragraphs must be indicated by a consistent tab indentation throughout the entire document.
• The document text must be left-justified, not centered or right-justified.
• For blocked quotations, indent the entire text of the quotation consistently from the left margin.
• Ensure headings are not left hanging alone on the bottom of a prior page. The text following should be moved up or the heading should be moved down. This is something to check near the end of formatting, as other adjustments to text and spacing may change where headings appear on the page.

Exceptions : Blocked quotations, notes, captions, legends, and long headings must be single-spaced throughout the document and double-spaced between items.

Paginate your thesis or dissertation following these guidelines:

• Use lower case Roman numerals (ii, iii, iv, etc.) on all pages preceding the first page of chapter one. The title page counts as page i, but the number does not appear. Therefore, the first page showing a number will be the copyright page with ii at the bottom.
• Arabic numerals (beginning with 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) start at chapter one or the introduction, if applicable. Arabic numbers must be included on all pages of the text, illustrations, notes, and any other materials that follow. Thus, the first page of chapter one will show an Arabic numeral 1, and numbering of all subsequent pages will follow in order.
• Do not use page numbers accompanied by letters, hyphens, periods, or parentheses (e.g., 1., 1-2, -1-, (1), or 1a).
• Center all page numbers at the bottom of the page, 1/2″ from the bottom edge.
• Pages must not contain running headers or footers, aside from page numbers.
• If your document contains landscape pages (pages in which the top of the page is the long side of a sheet of paper), make sure that your page numbers still appear in the same position and direction as they do on pages with standard portrait orientation for consistency. This likely means the page number will be centered on the short side of the paper and the number will be sideways relative to the landscape page text. See these additional instructions for assistance with pagination on landscape pages in Microsoft Word .

Format footnotes for your thesis or dissertation following these guidelines:

• Footnotes must be placed at the bottom of the page separated from the text by a solid line one to two inches long.
• Begin at the left page margin, directly below the solid line.
• Single-space footnotes that are more than one line long.
• Include one double-spaced line between each note.
• Most software packages automatically space footnotes at the bottom of the page depending on their length. It is acceptable if the note breaks within a sentence and carries the remainder into the footnote area of the next page. Do not indicate the continuation of a footnote.
• Number all footnotes with Arabic numerals. You may number notes consecutively within each chapter starting over with number 1 for the first note in each chapter, or you may number notes consecutively throughout the entire document.
• Footnote numbers must precede the note and be placed slightly above the line (superscripted). Leave no space between the number and the note.
• While footnotes should be located at the bottom of the page, do not place footnotes in a running page footer, as they must remain within the page margins.

Endnotes are an acceptable alternative to footnotes. Format endnotes for your thesis or dissertation following these guidelines:

• Always begin endnotes on a separate page either immediately following the end of each chapter, or at the end of your entire document. If you place all endnotes at the end of the entire document, they must appear after the appendices and before the references.
• Include the heading “ENDNOTES” in all capital letters, and center it 1″ below the top of the first page of your endnotes section(s).
• Single-space endnotes that are more than one line long.
• Number all endnotes with Arabic numerals. You may number notes consecutively within each chapter starting over with number 1 for the first note in each chapter, or you may number notes consecutively throughout the entire document.
• Endnote numbers must precede the note and be placed slightly above the line (superscripted). Leave no space between the number and the note.

Tables, figures, and illustrations vary widely by discipline. Therefore, formatting of these components is largely at the discretion of the author.

For example, headings and captions may appear above or below each of these components.

These components may each be placed within the main text of the document or grouped together in a separate section.

Space permitting, headings and captions for the associated table, figure, or illustration must be on the same page.

The use of color is permitted as long as it is consistently applied as part of the finished component (e.g., a color-coded pie chart) and not extraneous or unprofessional (e.g., highlighting intended solely to draw a reader's attention to a key phrase). The use of color should be reserved primarily for tables, figures, illustrations, and active website or document links throughout your thesis or dissertation.

The format you choose for these components must be consistent throughout the thesis or dissertation.

Ensure each component complies with margin and pagination requirements.

Refer to the List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations section for additional information.

If your thesis or dissertation has appendices, they must be prepared following these guidelines:

• Appendices must appear at the end of the document (before references) and not the chapter to which they pertain.
• When there is more than one appendix, assign each appendix a number or a letter heading (e.g., “APPENDIX 1” or “APPENDIX A”) and a descriptive title. You may number consecutively throughout the entire work (e.g., 1, 2 or A, B), or you may assign a two-part Arabic numeral with the first number designating the chapter in which it appears, separated by a period, followed by a second number or letter to indicate its consecutive placement (e.g., “APPENDIX 3.2” is the second appendix referred to in Chapter Three).
• Include the chosen headings in all capital letters, and center them 1″ below the top of the page.
• All appendix headings and titles must be included in the table of contents.
• Page numbering must continue throughout your appendix or appendices. Ensure each appendix complies with margin and pagination requirements.

You are required to list all the references you consulted. For specific details on formatting your references, consult and follow a style manual or professional journal that is used for formatting publications and citations in your discipline.

Your reference pages must be prepared following these guidelines:

• If you place references after each chapter, the references for the last chapter must be placed immediately following the chapter and before the appendices.
• If you place all references at the end of the thesis or dissertation, they must appear after the appendices as the final component in the document.
• Select an appropriate heading for this section based on the style manual you are using (e.g., “REFERENCES”, “BIBLIOGRAPHY”, or “WORKS CITED”).
• Include the chosen heading in all capital letters, and center it 1″ below the top of the page.
• References must be single-spaced within each entry.
• Include one double-spaced line between each reference.
• Page numbering must continue throughout your references section. Ensure references comply with margin and pagination requirements.

In some cases, students gain approval from their academic program to include in their thesis or dissertation previously published (or submitted, in press, or under review) journal articles or similar materials that they have authored. For more information about including previously published works in your thesis or dissertation, see the section on Use of Your Own Previously Published Materials and the section on Copyrighting.

If your academic program has approved inclusion of such materials, please note that these materials must match the formatting guidelines set forth in this Guide regardless of how the material was formatted for publication.

Some specific formatting guidelines to consider include:

• Fonts, margins, chapter headings, citations, and references must all match the formatting and placement used within the rest of the thesis or dissertation.
• If appropriate, published articles can be included as separate individual chapters within the thesis or dissertation.
• A separate abstract to each chapter should not be included.
• The citation for previously published work must be included as the first footnote (or endnote) on the first page of the chapter.
• Do not include typesetting notations often used when submitting manuscripts to a publisher (i.e., insert table x here).
• The date on the title page should be the year in which your committee approves the thesis or dissertation, regardless of the date of completion or publication of individual chapters.
• If you would like to include additional details about the previously published work, this information can be included in the preface for the thesis or dissertation.

Previous: Order and Components

Next: Distribution

Dr. Mark Womack

What Font Should I Use?

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

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

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

Use A Serif Font

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

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

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

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

Use A Readable Type Size

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

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

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

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

Font Recommendations

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

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

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

Microsoft Word Fonts

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

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

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

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

Mac OS Fonts

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

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

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

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

Google Fonts

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

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

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

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

Universal Fonts

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

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

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

Best Font For Academic Papers – You Should Know

There is no definitive answer to this question, as different fonts can be more or less effective depending on the specific context in which they are used.

However, some fonts are generally considered more readable and professional-looking than others, making them more suitable for academic papers. Some of the most commonly used fonts for academic papers include Times New Roman , Arial, and Calibri.

Table of Contents

What Is The Best Font To Use For Academic Papers?

There are a few things to consider when choosing a font for an academic paper. First, the font should be easy to read. This is important because you want your readers to be able to focus on the content of your paper, not struggle to read the words. Second, the font should be professional looking.

This means it should be clean and simple, without fancy embellishments. Third, the font should be a standard size. This is important because you want your paper to be easy to print and bind, if necessary.

A good font to use for academic papers is Times, New Roman. It is easy to read, professional-looking, and standard size. Another font that you may want to consider is Arial. It is also professional and easy to read, but it is slightly smaller than Times New Roman.

If you are unsure which font to use, ask your professor or the person grading your paper. They may have a preference or be able to guide you on which font would be best for your particular paper.

What Are The Benefits Of Using A Particular Font For Academic Papers?

Regarding academic papers, the benefits of using a particular font are clear. First and foremost, using a specific font helps ensure your paper is easily readable. After all, if your paper is difficult to read, it’s likely that your professor will have a hard time understanding it as well.

In addition, using a specific font can also help to make your paper look more professional. This is especially important if you’re submitting your paper to a journal for publication. While there’s no definitive answer, we recommend using a serif font like Times New Roman. This type of font is easy to read and has a classic look that will give your paper a sense of sophistication.

Are There Any Specific Fonts That Are Better Suited For Academic Papers?

The answer to this question is a resounding yes! There are entire books dedicated to which fonts are best for academic papers. While there are many opinions on the matter, the consensus is that serif fonts are better suited for academic papers than sans serif fonts. The reason for this is that serif fonts are easier to read, and they also convey a sense of sophistication and authority.

What Are Some Of The Best Serif Fonts For Academic Papers?

The most popular choices include Times New Roman, Georgia, and Cambria. However, it’s important to note that the best font for an academic paper will vary depending on the subject matter. For example, a paper on a scientific topic might benefit from a sans-serif font like Arial. In contrast, a paper on a literary topic might do better with a more traditional serif font like Times New Roman.

ultimately, the best way to figure out which font is best for an academic paper is to experiment with different fonts and see which looks and feels best. However, a serif font is a safe bet if you’re looking for a starting point.

What Are Some General Tips For Choosing A Font For Academic Papers?

When choosing a font for academic papers, remember a few general tips. First, make sure the font is easily readable. This is especially important for long papers or those with dense text. Second, stick to a standard font like Times New Roman or Arial.

These are easy to read and will help your paper look more professional. Finally, ensure the font size is large enough to be easily readable. This is especially important for papers that will be printed out.

Now that you know a few general tips for choosing a font for academic papers, let’s look at a real-life example. Suppose you’re writing a paper on the history of the United States. You might want to use a font like Times New Roman or Arial for this paper.

These fonts are easy to read and make your paper look more professional. You’ll also want to ensure the font size is large enough to be easily readable. This is especially important for papers that will be printed out. Hopefully, you are clear now on the best font for academic papers. If you still have any questions, feel free to comment below.

Selecting the best font for academic papers involves more than choosing the one that looks nice. It requires careful consideration of readability, legibility, and accessibility. While serif fonts like Times New Roman are popular and traditional, sans-serif fonts like Arial and Calibri are becoming more widely accepted in academia. Ultimately, the font choice will depend on the specific requirements of the academic institution or publisher.

Choosing a font for academic papers is an important decision that contributes to the overall quality of your work. By understanding the impact of font selection on your academic papers, you can ensure that your work presentation standouts most effectively and professionally possible.

Which Font Has Been Used In The Majority Of Printed Books Throughout Recorded History?

The font used in most printed books throughout recorded history is serif fonts, such as Times New Roman, Garamond, and Baskerville.

Which Font Is Most Commonly Found On Billboards And Signs?

The font that is most commonly found on billboards and signs is sans-serif fonts, such as Helvetica, Arial, and Futura.

What Font Is Favored In Textbooks?

The font that is favored in textbooks is usually serif fonts, such as Times New Roman or Garamond, as they are easier to read for extended periods of time.

What Color Should You Use In Your Title Tags?

You should use a color that contrasts well with the background color of your website and is easy to read. Common colors include black, dark gray, and dark blue.

What Font Size Should You Use?

The font size you should use for your title tags depends on the design of your website and the font you choose. A good rule of thumb is to use a font size between 18 and 24 pixels for desktop devices and between 16 and 20 pixels for mobile devices.

David Egee, the visionary Founder of FontSaga, is renowned for his font expertise and mentorship in online communities. With over 12 years of formal font review experience and study of 400+ fonts, David blends reviews with educational content and scripting skills. Armed with a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design and a Master’s in Typography and Type Design from California State University, David’s journey from freelance lettering artist to font Specialist and then the FontSaga’s inception reflects his commitment to typography excellence.

In the context of font reviews, David specializes in creative typography for logo design and lettering. He aims to provide a diverse range of content and resources to cater to a broad audience. His passion for typography shines through in every aspect of FontSaga, inspiring creativity and fostering a deeper appreciation for the art of lettering and calligraphy.

Related posts:

• 10 Point Font Size: Amazing Guideline The font size is usually based on the document’s or website’s purpose. For example, a document intended to be read by a large audience would likely be printed in a larger font than a document meant for a smaller group....
• The Ultimate Guide To Standard Letter Font Size: Tips And Best Practices In today’s digital age, the importance of standard letter font size cannot be overstated. It can affect your written communication’s readability, professionalism, and overall impact. Maintaining readability is crucial when selecting the font size for standard letters. The most commonly...
• The Art Of Choosing The Right Latex Table Font Size: A Comprehensive Guide As we navigate the digital landscape, the importance of typography, particularly in latex tables, cannot be overstated. Choosing the right LaTeX table font size can make or break the legibility of your table, rendering it either unreadable or easily understandable. Table...
• What Font Size Are Books Written In: Let’s Find Out Here Books have been a part of human civilization for centuries. From the early days of parchment and quill to the modern-day digital era, books have adapted to the changing times. But one question remains unanswered: In what font size do...

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

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!

Free Consultation

• Writing the End Is Just the Beginning
• V. & D. Povall Publishing Journey Q&A
• Sonja H. Lüsch Publishing Journey Q&A
• How To Get Your Book in Stores
• Can You Publish a Book Anonymously?
• Author Q&A (23)
• Editing (18)
• Making Money (7)
• Marketing (13)
• Publishing (62)
• Publishing Journey Q&A (5)
• Uncategorized (2)
• Writing (57)

• Graduate School
• Current Students
• Dissertation & Thesis Preparation

Formatting Requirements

Choice of font.

For most theses, the font should be one that is appropriate for an academic paper. Generally, the same font should be used throughout the thesis (dedication page and scholarship-appropriate alterations excepted).

Normally the font should be equivalent to 10 to 12 point font in Times New Roman or Arial for main text, and at least 2mm high in tables and figures.

Font colour should normally be black throughout, except for web links which should be blue.

• Why Grad School at UBC?
• Graduate Degree Programs
• Application & Admission
• Info Sessions
• Research Supervisors
• Research Projects
• Indigenous Students
• International Students
• Tuition, Fees & Cost of Living
• Newly Admitted
• Student Status & Classification
• Student Responsibilities
• Supervision & Advising
• Managing your Program
• Health, Wellbeing and Safety
• Professional Development
• Final Doctoral Exam
• Final Dissertation & Thesis Submission
• Life in Vancouver
• Vancouver Campus
• Graduate Student Spaces
• Graduate Life Centre
• Life as a Grad Student
• Graduate Student Ambassadors
• Meet our Students
• Award Opportunities
• Award Guidelines
• Minimum Funding Policy for PhD Students
• Killam Awards & Fellowships
• Policies & Procedures
• Information for Supervisors
• Dean's Message
• Leadership Team
• Strategic Plan & Priorities
• Vision & Mission
• Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
• Initiatives, Plans & Reports
• Graduate Education Analysis & Research
• Media Enquiries
• Newsletters
• Giving to Graduate Studies

Strategic Priorities

• Strategic Plan 2019-2024
• Improving Student Funding
• Promoting Excellence in Graduate Programs
• Enhancing Graduate Supervision
• Advancing Indigenous Inclusion
• Supporting Student Development and Success
• Reimagining Graduate Education
• Enriching the Student Experience

Initiatives

• Public Scholars Initiative
• 3 Minute Thesis (3MT)
• PhD Career Outcomes
• Great Supervisor Week

• [email protected]

Get Instant Help From 5000+ Experts For

11 ideal fonts for dissertation writing |helpwithassignment.com.

• Dissertation

Times New Roman, Georgia, Garamond, Arial, Verdana, Cambria, Century Gothic, Constantia, and Arial Narrow are some of the ideal fonts for dissertation writing.

What is Dissertation Writing ?

In the term – Dissertation writing, the word “Dissertation” has originated from the Latin language where ‘ dissertare’ means ‘to debate’. This word was first used in the English language in around 1651 which gave us a definition to write extensively on a certain subject. It is also defined as a long piece of writing on any particular topic which you have studied.

In a dissertation writing, the writer should always choose to write with the help of using a clear font like Arial, Times New Roman, etc. They should also set perfect font sizes such are 10 to 12 also the line spacing should be done of 1.15 or 1.5 which is generally accepted as it makes the document appear more neat and tidy and allows the reader to put comments in between.

Mistakes that should be avoided while choosing the Font for dissertation writing:

• Do not choose fonts on the basis of your personal likes and dislikes. Always the writer should keep in mind that they should choose the font on the basis of the reader’s perspective as it is not easy to go through a 20 pages dissertation with a complex font.
• Always avoid using too many fonts as the write-ups become too much complicated and is also not considered well organized.
• All fonts for dissertation do not match or work together, therefore, a student should make sure that they should choose fonts which go along their write up
• Try separating the fonts of your subtitles and the paragraphs as the same fonts used might make your writing monotonous and boring for the reader.

11 Best Font for Dissertation Writing

Times new roman: most common fonts for dissertation.

This font was originally designed for Times Newspaper of London. This font has a separate and different aesthetician a formal style that is prescribed or assigned by many universities and colleges. It is also quite easy to read.

This is a serif type font designed by Matthew Carter and was founded by Microsoft Corporation. It was created and released in 1993 and 1996 respectively.

This another font which has a pleasant-looking appearance on dissertation writing and is also considered as an old-style serif typeface which was named for 16th-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond. This font is very much popular and is used for printing books etc.

This is also a Serif style typeface commissioned by Microsoft which was designed by Steve Matteson, Robin Nicholas and Jelle Bosma in 2004. It is distributed by windows and office.

Century Gothic:

This is also designed in a sans serif typeface style and a geometric style that was released in 1991 by Monotype Imaging. 

Palatino Linotype:

This font was first released in 1949 by Stempel foundry. This serif typeface style font was designed by Hermann Zapf. It has bee also classified as old style font.

This font style is one of the commonly used font styles which is also displayed sometimes as Arial MT. It has been classified as neo-grotesque sans-serif which was released in 1982 and was designed by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders.

This font style is widely used for writing dissertations or any other academic papers as they provide a very cleaned and very simple – smooth look to the paper and also to the eyes of the reader. This was designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation.

Constantia:

This was designed by John Hudson, a serif style design that was commissioned by Microsoft. The developmental work for this writing began in 2003 and was finally released in 2006

Century schoolbook: Fonts for dissertation

It is again a serif style typeface that was designed by Linn Boyd and Morris F Benton. This belongs to the century writing font family which was released in between 1894-1923.

Arial Narrow:

This is a high style font that is available for free download for personal and commercial use. However, the free version provides all upper case and lower case with some special character and features.

Therefore above are some of the most popularly used ideal fonts for dissertation writing. Times Roman is the most chosen font styles for thesis and dissertation writing but still, it has some common drawbacks as this font was created mostly to create spaces in between the words and letters but according to some professionals, the usage of this font causes overuse of view.

Similarly, Verdana and Arial fonts for dissertation might provide a simple and clear look on the screen but on the paper, it appears a little congested and a little less formal. But still, all of these fonts discussed above are some of the most appropriate fonts which are ideally used in writing a thesis, dissertation, essays or any writing assignment given to a student in college.

HelpwithAssignment.com provides the best quality dissertation help to the students. We have a team of skilled and experienced dissertation writers who have undergone double specialization in related fields. They are capable of writing any kind of dissertation from scratch within no time.

Best features of HelpWithAssignment.com ‘s Dissertation Help

Full-time experts: All the experts at HelpwithAssignment are full time assignment help experts and are dedicated experienced professionals who devote their full time in service of the students.

Best Quality Work: We never compromise with the quality of work. That is the reason why students always prefer our assignment services. Even if the deadline is very near, we only provide the best quality papers.

Talk to Subject Experts: You can talk to subject experts regarding the update of your assignment. If you want to make some changes to the solution, then you can convey some message to the expert. 

Plagiarism-free: We know how plagiarism affects the grades of the student. We follow strict rules on plagiarism and use Turnitin to check the originality of the papers. Papers provided by our experts are 100% genuine and plagiarism-free.

Delivery before Deadline: We understand your stress related to the submission. Our experts complete assignments before the deadline and even give enough time to make last-minute changes. 

Reasonable Cost: The cost of hiring a tutor for assignment help or homework help is very reasonable. We know the financial constraints of college or university going students. Hence, our pricing has been designed keeping in view an average student’s budget in mind.

Get Instant Dissertation Writing Help

Fill up the assignment help request form on the right or drop us an email at  [email protected] . Feel free to contact our customer support on the company 24/7 Live chat or call us on 312-224-1615.

Book Your Assignment

Recent Posts

11 Simple Ways to Stay Motivated While Writing Your Thesis

51 top topics for masters thesis in biomedical engineering, 200+ exclusive legal thesis topics for 2024, how to write methodology in thesis, boost your thesis writing: 11 proven tips with statement examples, popular categories, get assignment help from subject matter experts.

4.7/5 rating | 10,000+ happy students | Great tutors 24/7

ONLINE TO HELP YOU 24X7

OR GET MONEY BACK!

OUT OF 38983 REVIEWS

• KU Libraries
• Subject & Course Guides
• KU Thesis and Dissertation Formatting
• Fonts and Spacing

KU Thesis and Dissertation Formatting: Fonts and Spacing

• Formatting Specifics
• Title and Acceptance Pages
• Page Numbering
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Rotating Charts or Tables
• Working with Footnotes
• Converting to PDF
• Embedding Fonts
• Completed KU Dissertations & Theses
• About: Survey of Earned Doctorates
• Copyright and ETD Release Form
• Resources for KUMC Students
• Thesis/Dissertation Filenames
• LaTeX/BibTeX Support

Office of Graduate Studies Thesis and Dissertation Formatting Guidelines

These rules are taken from the KU Office of Graduate Studies Thesis or Dissertation Formatting Guidelines. To see the full thesis or dissertation formatting requirements, visit https://graduate.ku.edu/submitting

• Students should use the same font size (11- or 12-point) and style (typically Times New Roman) through the thesis, including labels and references.
• Tables, captions, and footnotes should use the same font style but may be smaller in size (usually 10-point).
• Chapter and section headings may be bold and no more than 2 points larger than the text size.
• Non-standard typefaces, such as script, are generally not acceptable except for commonly used symbols.
• The Office of Graduate Studies recommends that students get their font choice approved by their department and their graduate division before the thesis defense.
• Lettering and symbols in tables and figures should be no less than 10 points.
• Normally theses and dissertations use double-spaced formatting.
• Single-spaced formatting is acceptable in the table of contents, footnotes, end notes, charts, graphs, tables, block quotations, captions, glossary, appendices and bibliography.
• Students may use singe- or one-and-a-half-spacing for the body of the text with prior written approval of their thesis committee and graduate division.

Subject Guide

• << Previous: Title and Acceptance Pages
• Next: Page Numbering >>
• Last Updated: Apr 12, 2024 11:31 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.ku.edu/etd

Ebooks, Publishing, and Everything in Between

• Downloads & Pricing
• Advertising

Best Fonts for Ebooks in 2024: A Guide for Authors in the Digital Era

• on Sep 17, 2023
• in Interactive Ebooks
• Last update: January 3rd, 2024

If you’ve ever published an ebook before, then you’re probably aware that there’s so much that goes into the designing process. From creating the front cover to choosing a suitable layout, it can get overwhelming. But one important element of design that often gets overlooked is the ebook font you use.

And while there are probably thousands of fonts out there that might leave you confused as to which to choose, there’s no need to worry; we have got you covered! In this article, we’ll explore the best fonts for ebooks, and how to choose the right one for you.

Why Selecting the Right Ebook Font Matter?

Even though some people choose to go with the default fonts (e.g. Calibri or Arial), selecting the right ones for your ebook can have a huge impact on many elements, including:

• Readability and comprehension: The main goal of any font is to make the text readable. If the font you’re using isn’t clear enough, your readers might not be able to understand the content of your ebook. That’s why selecting the right font can increase legibility and ensure that the readers can absorb the content without unnecessary effort.
• Visual appeal and engagement: Selecting the right font can add to the overall visual appeal of your ebook. It can also increase reader engagement and convey the tone of your content in a subtle way. For example, some fonts (like Comic Sans) may appear playful and light, while others can look more professional (such as Hevicta).

• Accessibility: While choosing a font for your ebook, it’s important to keep the visually impaired and dyslexic readers in mind. Including small fonts or ones with intricate designs can be difficult for them to read. Instead, go for fonts that aren’t overly decorative to ensure that each individual letter is recognizable.
• Brand recognition: Selecting the same font for your ebooks as the one you use in your other branding materials (if applicable) can help create a coherent visual identity that resonates with your readers. This brand recognition can help them create an emotional attachment to your content.

What Are the Different Kinds of Fonts?

As we mentioned earlier, choosing the kind of font can depend hugely on the content of your ebook. But to better understand the difference between each type, let’s take a quick look at what each of them means:

• Serif fonts: These types of fonts tend to be more decorative, with tails or small strokes at the end of the letters. Some designers believe that these strokes help guide readers from one letter to the next. Moreover, these fonts are usually seen as elegant and sometimes playful. Examples include Times New Roman , Georgia , and Garamond .

• One variation of this type of font is known as the Slab Serif , which was designed to withstand the industrial printing processes. These fonts have thicker strokes and appear to be more bold. They are often used in branding and advertising. Examples include Rockwell , Courier , and Clarendon .

• Sans serif fonts: Unlike serif fonts, these ones tend to be clearer and sharper, so that you won’t mistake one character for another. Thus, they are considered to be more professional and formal. Examples include Arial , Helvetica , and Calibri .

• Script fonts: Have you ever seen a digital font that feels like a beautiful hand-written script? Well, these fonts are known for their artistic style, as the characters appear to be flowing and cursive. Examples include Edwardian Script , Brush Script , and Lobster .

• Display fonts: Display fonts are highly stylized and are often used for decorative or artistic purposes. They can be thematic or abstract in design and are not typically used for long paragraphs of text, but rather for headlines, banners, and large text. Examples include Papyrus , Jokerman , and Bauhaus 93 .

• Monospaced fonts: First appeared in the typewriter days, each character in the monospaced fonts had to occupy the same horizontal space for mechanical reasons. These fonts are still popular today for coding, tabulation, and some print and online media sections. Examples include Courier , Consolas , and Monaco .

How to Select the Right Font for Your Ebook?

Now that you know how different fonts can affect the success of your ebook, let’s move to the things you need to keep in mind while selecting one:

• Think of your ebook’s genre, tone, and target audience . If you are writing a children’s ebook , for example, you can use fonts that are more playful yet easy to read, such as Caroni. But if you are working on employee training materials or a textbook , you might want to stay with more formal fonts, like Baskerville.

• For better readability, choose a font that contrasts sharply with the background of your ebook, such as Verdana. Also, make sure that it has enough thickness to increase its legibility and make it easier for the reader’s eyes to track the lines of text.
• Check its compatibility with different devices and how it appears on various screen sizes.
• If your ebook is text-heavy, it’s much better to opt for clear easy-to-read fonts. But if your ebook relies less on text and more on images or other interactive elements , then you can go for more decorative fonts.
• Ensure that your font of choice supports a wide range of characters , including special symbols (such as Arial). This is especially important if your ebook is multilingual or includes technical terms.
• If you are using a custom font, make sure you have the right to its digital distribution so you don’t face any legal issues after publishing.

Best Fonts for Ebooks 

While some people prefer to use only one font throughout their ebooks, others opt for using one for the headings and another for the body text. The choice is yours of course, but if you decide to go with the first option, then try to select a font that is clear and simple. But if you choose the second option, then you can find below some suggestions for both headings and body text fonts that would make your ebook more engaging.

Best Fonts for Headings

When choosing fonts for your titles, headings, and subheadings, you can go with slightly decorative ones that grab the readers’ attention. While keeping the tone of your ebook in mind, serif and display fonts can do a great job in this regard. And since the headings are usually in a larger font, there won’t be any readability issues if you choose these typefaces. Let us give you some examples:

• Georgia: Specially designed for digital text, Georgia font has a formal yet charming look. It is also very well known for being one of the best fonts for reading books, even on lower-resolution screens.

• Montserrat: Because of its bold and modern look, Montserrat is often used in headlines and titles. Its design was inspired by the signs and posters in the Montserrat neighborhood of Buenos Aires, and it has a large x-height that makes it perfect for grabbing your readers’ attention.

• Bookerly: Bookerly is one of the new Kindle fonts that are used in e-readers and apps. It has a contemporary look, with balanced spacing, elegant curves, and subtle details. And the fact that it is designed specifically for digital reading makes it excellent for readability.

• Baskerville: As a traditional serif font, Baskerville is both elegant and highly readable, even when it is set at a small size. This is mainly due to its crisp edges, high contrast, and spacious proportions.

• Roboto: Roboto is a modern and versatile sans-serif font, that offers a friendly and approachable feel. It’s designed for screen use and comes in various weights, making it suitable for different heading styles.

• Caroni: This is one of the best fonts for children’s books ; with its laidback design, it feels like a handwritten script that is perfect for use in different media.

• Quicksand: This font has a rounded design that makes it fun yet easy to read for both kids and adults. It’s perfect for adding a friendly and informal feel to your ebooks.

Best Fonts for Body Text

Since the majority of ebooks usually consist of body text, you want to select a font that’s clear enough and easy to read. You also have to keep in mind that the resolution of the font might be affected by the different screen sizes. That’s why it’s better here to choose a clearer sans-serif font.

• Arial: Probably the most widely used font for body text, Arial is usually the default font in many word processing software, such as Google Docs. This could mainly be because it is an extremely versatile font that is good for readability and can be used in ebooks, elearning materials, and digital publishing in general. 

• Verdana: Designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, this is one of the most popular fonts for screen reading. As a sans serif font, it is legible in small size and doesn’t have any strokes or tails, which makes it easy on the eyes for text-heavy ebooks.

• Helvetica: Used by many famous organizations (including Apple, NASA, and BMW), Helvetica has a clean and simple look. It is also known to be one of the most used fonts in thriller and crime mystery ebooks .

• Roboto: Designed by Google, Roboto has a mechanical skeleton with largely geometric forms. It also features friendly and open curves, providing a more natural reading rhythm.

• Poppins: This font is a geometrical sans serif that is also perfect for the body text of your ebook! With elegant curves and sharp corners, Poppins can give your ebook design the edge you need.

• Calibri: As a famous sans serif font, Calibri is widely used because of its distinguished characters and ease of readability. Whether you are working on a business proposal or some marketing materials, this font can surely make your content look neat and professional.

• Muli: Muli features a modern and clean design; that’s why it is suitable for both digital and print text. Its letterforms are simple, with rounded edges and minimal contrast between thick and thin strokes.

Where to Find Fonts for Your Ebooks

The internet is full of websites to download fonts from. However, it’s not very recommended to download from just any random website, especially when it comes to free fonts that might have licenses for personal or commercial. And while knowing where to find a trusted place to download ebook fonts from might be tricky, there’s no need to worry; we are here to help! You can find below credible sources for your ebook fonts:

• Google Fonts : This is a library of free and open-source font families that can be used on websites and other projects, including ebooks. It has over 1,000 font families and is constantly growing, making it easy to add high-quality typography to your ebooks without the need for any special coding or software.
• Adobe Fonts : Even though this is mainly a subscription-based service, you can find some free fonts that don’t require a subscription. And the good thing is that this website streamlines font management, licensing, and integration with Adobe applications.
• MyFonts : If you’re looking for premium fonts to use in your ebooks, you’ll find on this website plenty of ones that will make your content look great! Besides their paid fonts, they have a collection of free ones that you can use; just make sure to read and understand the licensing terms of the font you’re interested in.
• 101 Free Fonts : This website offers free and unique fonts. They also have some great bundles if you’re looking to purchase multiple fonts at once. For example, you can purchase 10,000 fonts that are licensed for personal and commercial use for only $20!
• FontBundles : With hundreds of free fonts, you can find on FontBundles a great one for your ebook! These fonts can be used with Microsoft Word, as well as other software, and they come with a commercial license.

How to Add Fonts to Your Ebooks

Let’s say there is a certain font you’d like to use in your ebook and it isn’t included in the ebook creator you are using. However, you are not sure how to do that. Well, all you have to do is download this font from any of the websites we mentioned earlier and add your ebook creator software. 

If you’re using Kotobee Author, for example, you can add your downloaded font files to the File Manager in your ebook. To see our step-by-step tutorial on how to add fonts to your ebook, check out this article .

Final Thoughts

Choosing one of the best fonts for ebooks can affect how your readers receive your content. Besides improving readability, it can also convey a certain tone and help set the mood of your ebook. So choose your fonts carefully, and make sure that whichever one you select can be read on various screen sizes and is suitable for your target audience.

8 Ebook Design Tips from Professional Designers

Exploring Kotobee’s AI Content Creation Tool

How to Host Your Ebook and Share It with Others

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Currently you have JavaScript disabled. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser.

Kotobee is the complete end-to-end ebook solution for you and your business. Export multiple formats. Deliver securely.

Create, publish, and sell ebooks with ease

Kotobee es la solución completa de ebooks de extremo a extremo para usted y su empresa.

Cree, publique y venda libros electrónicos con facilidad

Recent Posts

• LMS Integration: Types, Examples, and Best Practices
• How to Edit a Book for Publishing: Tips & Best Practices
• Book Royalties: What They Are and How to Earn the Best Rates
• Game-Based Learning: What It Is, and How to Apply It
• How to Publish a Book for Free and Maximize Your Profit
• Entries feed
• Comments feed
• WordPress.org

20 Most Readable Fonts For Printing Books (All are Free)

Last Updated on July 20, 2022 by Dr Sharon Baisil MD

When you’re picking a font for your next book layout, it’s important to choose something that is both readable and visually appealing. In this article, we will be discussing the 20 most readable fonts for print . These fonts are all free to download and use so that you can get started on your next project right away!

#1 OpenDyslexic

OpenDyslexic is an open-source, Unicode typeface created to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. This font will make the classic “c Upside down” ( ) common in English texts much easier to read at a glance.

OpenDyslexic is free to download for home, commercial, or classroom use.

Matt McInerney designed Raleway as an open-source font released under the SIL Open Font License. This typeface has a lot of recognizability owing to its professional appearance and timeless design. It is a great font for your books because it is easy on the eyes, highly readable, and elegant.

#3 Crimson Text

Crimson Text is an old-fashioned serif typeface that exudes style. Inspired by the art deco movement of the 1920s, this typeface works best for books with a timeless, classic feeling. It has a noticeable boldness that makes it stand out in text, which is why it works well for titles and headers.

#4 Garamond

Garamond is perfect for readers who prefer serif fonts. This typeface offers timeless elegance that you can’t find with sans-serif typefaces, making it the perfect choice for books that need an old-fashioned feel.

Garamond is also widely available as a web font through Google Fonts and Adobe Edge Web Fonts, so you can use it to display text on your website with ease.

#5 Minion Pro

Minion Pro is another typeface with great readability. It was designed by Steve Matteson in 1990 for Adobe and has been used by various companies, such as Amazon and Apple.

If your text is going to be small on the page, this typeface makes it easy to read. It works well for display or large font text in books that need a serious tone.

Cambria, another highly readable font, was designed in 2000 by Microsoft and is one of the most commonly used fonts. This typeface has a warmth that makes you feel comfortable when reading your text. It’s highly legible at all sizes, allowing you to increase your headline’s size without worrying about losing readers’ attention because of an illegible font.

It’s mostly used in book design because it’s highly legible and has some pretty unique features that make it stand out. Cambria is also one of the most used fonts in Microsoft Office.

Avenir is a sans-serif typeface with all of the modern appeals of a futuristic feel without sacrificing readability. This font brings balance and energy to your text, making it ideal for blogs and books with a contemporary tone.

Avenir can be found in the Apple library and is part of their system font, meaning that it is usually pre-installed on Mac computers. This makes it a perfect choice for saving disk space because you don’t need to download or buy an additional font.

#8 Baskerville

Baskerville was designed in 1757 by John Baskerville, an Englishman who ran a writing-paper mill. The design was based on Bodoni’s old-style sharp serifs and fine strokes. It is believed that the typeface has been used for more memorial inscriptions in Westminster Abbey than any other face, including its namesake.

Baskerville is best used for headlines and display typography, as it is difficult to read in smaller font sizes. It’s a rather formal typeface, with features such as its steep sloping diagonal stress and elegant contours that give it a very classy feel.

One of the most popular fonts among designers, Bodoni is a black serif typeface that works well for headlines and body text. It has extremely stylized serifs that make it difficult to read in smaller font sizes but bring a level of appeal to your titles and headers.

#10 Georgia

Georgia is a serif typeface that Matthew Carter designed in 1993. It is most commonly used for body text because it is highly readable, even at smaller font sizes.

It’s a great choice for books with a traditional tone and can be found on Mac, Windows, and most Linux systems, making it easy to access from any computer.

Bembo is a classic Renaissance-era typeface that gives your text a formal tone and strong appeal. Designed in 1929 by Stanley Morrison and issued by the Monotype Corporation, this font has been used extensively throughout history. It can now be easily integrated into any book design or editorial layout.

#12 Helvetica Neue

Helvetica Neue is an updated version of the original Helvetica font. It’s intended for on-screen use, but it’s also readable in print format. One of the main things people like about this font is downloading it for free, and its low price point and accessibility are why many choose to use this font.

#13 Georgia

Georgia is another serif font commonly used in print because it’s readable and easy to read. Vanse Design specializes in book design, and they’ve recommended Georgia for large amounts of text.

It was designed by Matthew Carter and initially released in 1996 through Microsoft, so it’s been used a lot in the digital realm.

#14 Verdana

Like Georgia, Verdana is also a serif font designed for on-screen reading, even though it was initially designed for Microsoft. It’s pretty readable, and you’ll notice this when browsing around websites like Facebook or Twitter. You can use it in headings, but make sure you don’t use it for body text.

#15 Open Sans

Open Sans is a well-known, highly legible font created by Steve Matteson. This font family is widely used across the web for a good reason – it’s clean and relatively simple without compromising its readability. For optimum versatility, it comes in nine different weights (including light, regular, medium, semi-bold, bold, heavy & black).

#16 Merriweather

Created by Eben Sorkin, Merriweather is a sans serif font family most suitable for on-screen reading and perfect for book design. The legibility of this typeface is one of its most powerful features – it’s also sober, versatile, and easy to read. This makes it perfect for ebook and print, even though it was originally designed for on-screen use.

#17 Antique Olive

Designed by George Ryan in 1955, it was initially created to be used in the advertising industry. It works well for headlines and short words, but it’s a little more difficult to read when used for body text. This is why it should only be used for small amounts of copy within a book layout or editorial design.

Designed by Kimberly Geswein, Rooney is a serif font that’s simple and easy to read. It was initially created to create a more traditional typeface for modern printing techniques.

You can use it as a headline or short amounts of body text, although this will depend on the project and how much text you’re using.

#19 Astloch

A font first released in 1999 by Matthew Butterick, Astloch is highly legible with a classic design. It’s been used for book covers before because it was intended to be used on the web, and it’s still used by some today for this purpose.

Trajan is a serif typeface designed in 1989 by Carol Twombly for Adobe. It took inspiration from Roman square capitals and was inspired by the Trajan’s Column, which tells how Emperor Trajan defeated Dacia (present-day Romania) in 107.

It’s commonly used for print and web design, making it a popular choice among many designers. It’s perfect for book layout and headings because it looks good even when printed in small sizes.

What Makes a Font Easy to Read?

The font is easy to read when its characters are distinguishable and when the spacing between the letters and words is optimized for legibility.

Fonts that meet these requirements are typically serif fonts because the serifs help guide the reader’s eye along the lines of text. Sans-serif fonts are often considered easy to read, but they can be more challenging for dyslexic readers.

Serif fonts feature small lines and dots (the serifs) at the end of strokes in each letter, while sans-serif fonts do not. Serif should be used for body text and sans-serif for headlines for printing purposes.

Readability is also dependent on the size of lettering and spacing used. There is a consensus that body text should be set between 9 and 12 points in serif fonts, with 10-point leading (the space between two lines). Letters in sans-serif fonts should be slightly larger than those in serif fonts. And while there isn’t a consensus about the spacing between letters (kerning), there is evidence that tighter letter spacing can improve the readability of body text.

Readability can also depend on whether or not the font contains serifs. There are mixed opinions on this topic. One school of thought suggests that sans-serif fonts are easier to read than serif fonts, while the other argues that sans-serif fonts can contribute to higher cognitive load and slower reading speeds.

These opinions are backed by research, which shows that the most readable font is Georgia (a serif font), while Arial (a sans-serif font) tends to be more difficult to read.

Serifs guide the eye along the lines of text – they can also help minimize side effects associated with dyslexia. Without serifs, letters appear jagged and uneven, which has increased visual stress and cognitive effort required for reading.

The size and spacing of letters also contribute to readability by preventing them from appearing jagged and uneven. This helps maintain visual comfort and reduces the stress associated with reading.

Fonts too bold or too light can also reduce readability because they prevent letters from being legible.

The same idea applies to background graphics on websites – they should not be excessively detailed or textured, as this interferes with readability. Instead, simple background colors or textures that create a solid color and reduce the need for side-to-side movements increase readability.

What size font is most readable?

Font size is one factor that dictates how readable a piece of text is. It’s useful to think of them as lying along a scale, where larger fonts are more readable, and smaller fonts are less readable. This isn’t an exact science, but it can guide font choices for those working on design projects.

Multiple studies have found that the font size of 12 pt is the most readable, and the size of 12 pt is also the default font size for Microsoft Word documents. However, when working with small devices (smartphones, handheld game consoles, etc.), it can be better to go for a slightly smaller font size of 10 pt where possible.

The pros and cons of larger fonts

Larger font sizes are easier to read because they can be seen further, and they’re less tiring to look at, and your message will be more likely to stand out from a crowd. On the downside, if you opt for an extremely large font size, it can start to look jarring or even comical. This is especially true if you’re using a script font with individual letters dramatically different in height.

The pros and cons of smaller fonts

Smaller fonts are less accessible because they’re harder to see from a distance, and they’re also harder to read because the extra strain is placed on your eyes as they work to decipher the letters. However, smaller fonts can also be used more artistically. If you favor sans-serif fonts, it can create an interesting contrast between the words and the surrounding empty space.

Final Words

While there are many fonts to choose from, the 20 most readable fonts for printing books listed in this blog offer a variety of typefaces that are perfect for any book design or editorial layout. Each font has its unique features and benefits, so be sure to select the right one for your specific project. What’s your favorite book-specific font? Share in the comments below!

Frequently Asked Questions

Which font is easiest to read in print.

Answer: Helvetica is one of the easiest fonts to read in print because it has a relatively high x-height, which means that the lowercase letters are relatively large compared to the ascenders and descenders (the parts of the letter that stick up above and below the main body of the letter). Additionally, Helvetica has a very simple design with very few variations in thickness or weight, so it’s easy for the eye to follow from one letter to the next

Do serifs make easier read?

Answer: Serifs make it easier to read because they help guide the eye from one letter to the next. This is particularly helpful for people who are reading smaller text, such as in a book or on a computer screen. Some experts believe that serifs also make it easier to remember what you’ve read because they help to structure the text in a way that is easier for the brain to remember. For this reason, many textbooks and newspapers use serif fonts.

Which size font is easiest for most readers to read?

Answer: 12 pt font is the easiest size for most readers to read. It’s large enough to be easily visible, but not so large that it takes up too much space on the page. Some people prefer larger fonts, such as 14 or 16 pt, but 12 pt is generally considered the ideal size for readability.

What is the most visually appealing font?

Answer: Roboto is the most visually appealing font. It was created in 2012 by Google, and it’s meant to be used for digital screens. Many people say that it has a modern and futuristic look to it.

What is the best font for small print?

Answer: Garamond is a great font for small print because it’s designed to be easy to read. It has a large x-height, meaning the lowercase letters are taller than other fonts, which makes them easier to distinguish from one another. Additionally, the strokes of each letter are relatively thin, which makes them less likely to blur together when printed in small sizes.

What is the easiest font to read from a distance?

Answer: Helvetica is an easy font to read from a distance because it has been designed specifically for legibility. It has a large x-height (the height of lowercase letters), which makes it easier to distinguish between individual letters, and its letterforms are simple and clear. Additionally, Helvetica is a sans-serif font, meaning that the letters don’t have any small lines or serifs at the end of them, and this also contributes to its legibility.

Most Read Articles in 2023:

Hi, I am a doctor by profession, but I love writing and publishing ebooks. I have self-published 3 ebooks which have sold over 100,000 copies. I am featured in Healthline, Entrepreneur, and in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology blog.

Whether you’re a busy professional or an aspiring author with a day job, there’s no time like now to start publishing your ebook! If you are new to this world or if you are seeking help because your book isn’t selling as well as it should be – don’t worry! You can find here resources, tips, and tricks on what works best and what doesn’t work at all.

In this blog, I will help you to pick up the right tools and resources to make your ebook a best seller.

2 thoughts on “20 Most Readable Fonts For Printing Books (All are Free)”

Thanks for sharing your idea. For printing books, these typefaces are very beneficial. I like Open Sans Font and Bembo Font and used these fonts in my new projects. Keep up with the fantastic piece of work. Thanks.

Thank you Oliver

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.