This table presents a comparison between popular (proprietary) and less popular (free) fonts that are typographically similar and can be used as replacements. All free fonts mentioned below are under Free/Libre Open Source Software licenses such as GNU GPL and Open Font License and they are better because although not as popular, they permit both commercial as well as non-commercial purposes and redistribution. This table is written as a part of our continuous efforts in helping people switching to Free Software. Download links are available to the end of this article. See also the companion of this article How To Substitute Fonts on LibreOffice and Ubuntu.
(Picture showing FreeSans, FreeSerif, and FreeMono as substitutes to popular fonts for Kubuntu users)
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Comparison Table
Popular Fonts |
Alternative Fonts |
Arial |
FreeSans Liberation Sans Nimbus Sans |
Comic Sans |
Comic Neue |
Courier New |
FreeMono Liberation Mono Nimbus Mono |
Calibri |
Carlito |
Cambria |
Caladea |
Helvetica |
Nimbus Sans TeX Gyre Heros |
Times New Roman |
FreeSerif Liberation Serif Nimbus Roman |
Verdana |
DejaVu Sans |
Commentaries
- This table is actually a part of the guide in our continuous efforts in Indonesia to give public education on computing with free software.
- This table can be used by teachers to tell students why they do not find popular fonts, like Times New Roman, but instead free fonts, like GNU FreeSerif, on GNU/Linux operating system they use. We did that on our computer course.
- Learn more about fonts in general and alternative, free software licensed fonts in particular by reading references below and get profit.
Pictures
Screenshot below is Font Management (part of System Settings on Kubuntu) showing several of the above alternative fonts installed in personal mode with one of them, Carlito, shown its preview. Other names shown in the list Caladea, Comic Neue, and TeX Gyre family. Notice the infamous sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
Meanwhile, screenshot below is LibreOffice Writer exposing its choices of fonts, with the cursor pointing at Comic Neue, with other fonts showing like Comfortaa (not a part of table above) and DejaVu Sans.
Download Fonts
- Caladea fonts.google.com/specimen/Caladea
- Carlito github.com/googlefonts/carlito
- Comic Neue comicneue.com
- DejaVu dejavu-fonts.github.io
- FreeSerif, Sans, Mono gnu.org/software/freefont
- Liberation github.com/liberationfonts/liberation-fonts/releases
- Nimbus Roman, Sans, Mono git.ghostscript.com/?p=urw-core35-fonts.git
- Noto https://fonts.google.com/noto
- Tex Gyre ctan.org/pkg/tex-gyre?lang=en