OCR-A font
OCR-A is a monospaced sans serif made for optical character recognition. It was first issued by American Type Founders in 1968. Adobe Fonts includes a digital version, OCR A, with an Adobe subscription, for personal and commercial use. Free versions made from a METAFONT definition of 1988–89 may be used freely but not distributed for profit, by their author’s notice, so no open licence covers them. FontKind hasn’t measured it, so the free fonts below stand beside it by their own description and by class, not by measurement.
No picture of OCR-A here: only your own copy, if you have it
01 / Free fonts with a similar description or class
Your copy · OCR-A, from your device
Looking for OCR-A on this device…
01by class
Free for commercial useOFL
Fonts like Roboto Mono02by class
Free for commercial useOFL
Fonts like IBM Plex Mono03by class
Free for commercial useOFL
Fonts like JetBrains Mono04by class
Free for commercial useOFL
Fonts like Inconsolata05by class
Free for commercial useOFL
Fonts like Geist Mono06by class
Free for commercial useOFL
Fonts like Source Code Pro
Not measured against OCR-A: FontKind has no licensed copy of it. “By description” means the free font’s own description names OCR-A or its model; “by class”, that Google Fonts gives it the same class. Every one is free for commercial use.
About OCR-A
- First issued
- American Type Founders, 1968Source: Wikipedia: OCR-A
- Class
- Monospaced sans serif made for optical character recognitionSource: Wikipedia: OCR-A
- Comes with
- Not with Windows 11, macOS Tahoe or Microsoft 365, by their own listsSource: Microsoft: Windows 11 font list , Apple: fonts included with macOS Tahoe , Microsoft: cloud fonts in Office
- Licence
- Adobe Fonts includes a digital version, OCR A, with an Adobe subscription, for personal and commercial use. Free versions made from a METAFONT definition of 1988–89 may be used freely but not distributed for profit, by their author’s notice, so no open licence covers them.
- Also
- It was drawn to be read by the optical character recognition of early computers as well as by people, and is still widely used on cheques.Source: Wikipedia: OCR-A
Read by hand on 2 October 2026 from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), Microsoft’s and Apple’s lists of their fonts, Monotype’s list of its trademarks and the foundries’ and shops’ own pages. The references are linked beside each fact; a page that sells or hands out the font is not, so a fact read only there shows no link.
Typeface names may be trademarks of their owners. FontKind is not affiliated with American Type Founders, and this page is an independent reference.
Hold rights in OCR-A? Write to rights@fontkind.com: we answer within two working days, and take down what is disputed while we look into it.
Questions about OCR-A
Is OCR-A free?
Partly. Adobe Fonts includes a digital version, OCR A, with an Adobe subscription, for personal and commercial use. Free versions made from a METAFONT definition of 1988–89 may be used freely but not distributed for profit, by their author’s notice, so no open licence covers them. The free fonts on this page are free for commercial use too, under open licences.
Who made OCR-A?
OCR-A was first issued by American Type Founders in 1968.
Can I use OCR-A in Word, Google Docs or Canva?
In Word, only after you install a licensed copy: neither Windows nor Microsoft 365 comes with OCR-A. Google Docs adds fonts from Google Fonts, and OCR-A isn’t one of them; of the free fonts on this page, Roboto Mono, IBM Plex Mono and JetBrains Mono are there, under More fonts. Canva publishes no list of its fonts: search its font menu, or, with Canva Pro, upload a font whose licence allows it.
What is the closest free alternative to OCR-A?
FontKind hasn’t measured OCR-A: it has no licensed copy of it, so this page doesn’t rank free fonts by how close they come. Roboto Mono, IBM Plex Mono and JetBrains Mono are monospaced fonts in Google Fonts’ own classification, the class FontKind matches to OCR-A.