How we measure

The 2035 fonts are the families made for the Latin alphabet on Google Fonts, the open families Fontsource carries beyond Google, and the free families on Fontshare, read from their catalogues on 2026-10-06, and open families that libre foundries and designers publish themselves, each taken from its own release with the licence file that comes with it. All are free to use, and all but Fontshare’s are open-source. Names, designers, styles and character sets come from those catalogues and releases.

Each font’s regular style is downloaded and measured from its own outlines, so every number traces back to the file:

x-height

Height of the lowercase x, as a share of the em (the font size).

Cap height

Height of the capitals, as a share of the em.

Width

Average advance width of the 26 lowercase letters, as a share of the em.

Ink

How much of the letter box the lowercase fills at the regular weight: a measure of how dark the text sets.

Contrast

Thickness of the side strokes of the o against its top and bottom: 1 : 1 is an even stroke.

Each height and stroke these numbers come from is named, and lit up on real letters, in font anatomy.

An image model, Meta’s DINOv3, looks at 62 letters and figures of every font, a to z, A to Z and 0 to 9, each drawn from the font’s file at its regular weight and one size, and compares each with the same letter of every other font: an a with an a, a g with a g. The fonts whose letters look most alike come first. A font of another kind has to be clearly closer to make the list, so a sans can still find its monospace sister, as Space Grotesk finds Space Mono.

Some fonts look a little like everything and would crowd every list. So each match is weighed against how close both fonts already are to their usual neighbours, and a list shows kin, not the most ordinary fonts. A font’s own family, its other widths and cuts, and near copies of its letters under another name are listed apart.

The match score runs from 0, as alike as two ordinary fonts of one kind, to 100, closer than the best match of nine fonts in ten. A pair scores the same on both fonts’ pages.

A difference is named only when it is large enough to see — a few per cent of width or x-height, more for weight and contrast — and the words always follow the numbers: a font called wider is measurably wider.

The method is tested on pairs whose kinship is on record, a font and the one it was drawn from, which it should find close; on fonts that crowd everyone’s lists; and on matches that hold one way only. The method in use finds twice as many of those pairs among the ten closest as the one before it, and one-way matches have almost gone.

Each font’s page says whether Google Docs, Word and PowerPoint, Figma, Canva and Cricut Design Space already have it, from each app’s own font list or help pages, with the day they were read. This is how each app gets its fonts, the same for every font.

Google Docs

Google says most Google Fonts families can be added under More fonts in the font menu, and a font added in Docs is in Sheets and Slides too. Colour fonts are not supported yet, and Docs can’t add a font from anywhere else: set those in an app on your computer. Google’s guide

Word, PowerPoint

Microsoft 365’s cloud fonts download by themselves when a subscriber picks one in the font menu, and Windows 11 comes with fonts of its own. Any other font is installed first. To send a document set in one to someone who hasn’t installed it, turn on Embed fonts in the file in Word’s save options, where its licence allows that, or save a PDF. Microsoft’s list

Figma

Figma includes Google Fonts, in the browser and in the desktop app. Any other font is installed on the computer: the desktop app lists it, and so does the browser with Figma’s font installer, except on ChromeOS and Linux. Figma’s help

Canva

Canva publishes no list of its fonts, so no page here can say which it has: search its font menu. Canva Pro and Teams can upload a font file, OTF, TTF or WOFF, to the Brand Kit. Canva’s help

Cricut

Design Space takes any font installed on the computer and lists it under System: install the font, then close Design Space and open it again. Weld a script whose letters touch, so that it cuts as one piece. Fonts for Cricut →

To install a font, download it from its source and unzip the file; on Windows or a Mac, double-click each font file and choose Install, then restart any app that was open. Apps change their fonts: the app itself decides.

Every font here is free, and every licence here allows commercial use. Each font’s page answers six questions from its own licence; this is what each licence says, in plain words.

SIL Open Font License 1.1

Most fonts here. Use it for anything, logos, websites, apps and PDFs included, at any scale: the licence covers the font, not what you make with it. Self-host it, load it from a service, or bundle it with an app or a game. A changed version stays under the OFL and, where the licence reserves the font’s name, takes another. Pass the files on with the licence; they may be sold only bundled with other software, never on their own. Read the licence

Apache License 2.0

The same uses as the OFL. Change it, keeping the licence and marking the files you changed, and pass the files on with the licence and its notices, even for a fee. Read the licence

Ubuntu Font Licence 1.0

The same uses. A lightly changed version is called “… derivative” after the font’s name, a substantially changed one may not use the name at all, and both stay under the UFL. Pass the files on with their copyright notice and licence, even for a fee. Read the licence

ITF Free Font License 2.0

Fontshare’s own licence. Commercial use, and logos that can be registered as trademarks; your own websites and apps, but not as a font other people choose in your service, app or template editor; PDFs and documents with the font embedded so that it cannot be pulled out. No changes, not even subsetting or converting the files, without Indian Type Foundry’s written consent, and the files stay within your organisation: anyone else, freelancers and printers included, gets their own copy from Fontshare. Read the licence

MIT License

Use it for anything, change it and pass it on, keeping the copyright notice and licence with the files. Read the licence

CC0 1.0 and the Unlicense

Given to the public domain: use it, change it and pass it on, commercially too, with no conditions, not even a credit. CC0 1.0, public domain · The Unlicense, public domain

A plain summary, not legal advice: the licence itself decides.