this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2025
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What are some less known or underused open source fonts?

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[โ€“] lucg@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I see lots of links here but no reasons why each is underused or anything.

Look, I'm a simple person, what I ask of a font is:

  • differentiate your symbols โ€” I'm talking 1, l, I, and i with more than a single pixel difference at 11pt 90DPI, and the 0 should be clearly less round than O
  • be readable. No extra thinness, fancy swirls... look at any default font as an example (Arial or whatever), or most people's custom web font as a counter-example
  • proportionally spaced. I like \thinspace as thousand separator and I cannot lie
  • indefinitely usable (for example as part of a game) after a single purchase that I can do as a consumer. Or free/donationware of course

A very tall order I know. So far I've reviewed a bunch of fonts (I wasn't procrastinating why do you ask) and found PT Sans is the best option I've seen, so I'm using it, but I hate its Q. It's basically an O with a tilde below it. Any better options if all you want is clarity and normalcy?

Edit: near the bottom of the replies there's Hyperlegible. Somehow I had read over that. Seems to check the boxes! I'll be looking at this closer on my computer later.