DaFontFonts

Verdana Font

The wide humanist sans designed for computer screens

Matthew Carter · Humanist sans serif · 1996 · ! Bundled with Windows

Download Free Alternative

PT Sans · closest free match to Verdana

Verdana font poster: blue Verdana headline on a light grey screen interfaceVerdana style type on a library website and a printed school noticeVerdana style character set: uppercase and lowercase alphabet, numbers and symbols

Illustrations of the Verdana style made for DaFontFonts. Letterforms are approximate; check the official specimen before you buy.

Download Verdana

License:
Bundled with Windows
Font Type:
System font
Download:
Free alternative: PT Sans (OFL-1.1)
Format:
TTF
Total Files:
4 styles + licence
Download Free Alternative

Verdana itself is not free to download. This button gives you PT Sans, the closest free match, licensed for commercial use. Verdana on Microsoft Typography

About Verdana

Verdana was designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft and released in 1996, with hand-hinting by Tom Rickner. Microsoft describes it as created specifically for the challenges of on-screen display. Carter gave it a large x-height, wide letters, loose spacing and clearly different shapes for easily confused characters like 1, l and I.

Those choices made Verdana extremely readable on the low-resolution screens of the late 1990s, and it became one of the most used website fonts of the early web. It still works well for small interface text, forms and documents that will mostly be read on screen.

Where Verdana works best

  • Website body text
  • Interfaces and forms
  • On-screen documents
  • Small sizes and labels

Free alternatives to Verdana

Open-licence fonts with a comparable feel, every one verified free for commercial use and downloadable from DaFontFonts.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
DejaVu Sans Sans Serif · 4 styles ✓ OFL

DejaVu Sans shares Verdana's wide proportions and large x-height, making it a close free substitute.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
PT Sans Sans Serif · 4 styles ✓ OFL

PT Sans is a readable humanist sans with broad language support, good for screen text.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Open Sans Sans Serif · 12 styles · variable ✓ OFL

Open Sans was designed for screen legibility and is one of the most used free web fonts.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Noto Sans Sans Serif · 18 styles · variable ✓ OFL

Noto Sans offers a clean, neutral humanist design with enormous language coverage.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Source Sans 3 Sans Serif · 16 styles · variable ✓ OFL

Source Sans 3 is a clear interface sans with many weights for modern layouts.

Verdana is a trademark of its owner. DaFontFonts does not host or distribute the Verdana font files; download and licence links go to the official source.

Questions

Is Verdana font free?

It is free to use on Windows for documents you create. It is not free to redistribute or self-host as a web font. DejaVu Sans and Open Sans are free alternatives.

Who designed Verdana?

Matthew Carter designed Verdana for Microsoft in 1996, with hinting by Tom Rickner.

Why is Verdana so wide?

It was designed for small text on low-resolution screens. Wide letters, loose spacing and a large x-height keep each character clear.

Can I use Verdana on my website?

You can list it in your CSS font stack, since many visitors have it installed. Self-hosting the font files requires a license.

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