Fonts
This design guide was created for Windows 7 and has not been updated for newer versions of Windows. Much of the guidance still applies in principle, but the presentation and examples do not reflect our current design guidance.
Users interact with text more than with any other element in Microsoft Windows. Segoe UI (pronounced «SEE-go») is the Windows system font. The standard font size has been increased to 9 point.
The Segoe UI font.
Segoe UI and Segoe are not the same font. Segoe UI is the Windows font intended for user interface text strings. Segoe is a branding font used by Microsoft and partners to produce material for print and advertising.
Segoe UI is an approachable, open, and friendly typeface, and as a result has better readability than Tahoma, Microsoft Sans Serif, and Arial. It has the characteristics of a humanist sans serif: the varying widths of its capitals (narrow E and S, for instance, compared with Helvetica, where the widths are more alike, fairly wide); the stress and letterforms of its lowercase; and its true italic (rather than an «oblique» or slanted roman, like many industrial-looking sans serifs). The typeface is meant to give the same visual effect on screen and in print. It was designed to be a humanist sans serif with no strong character or distracting quirkiness.
Segoe UI is optimized for ClearType, which is on by default in Windows. With ClearType enabled, Segoe UI is an elegant, readable font. Without ClearType enabled, Segoe UI is only marginally acceptable. This factor determines when you should use Segoe UI.
Segoe UI includes Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and Arabic characters. There are new fonts, also optimized for ClearType, created for other character sets and uses. These include Meiryo for Japanese, Malgun Gothic for Korean, Microsoft JhengHei for Chinese (Traditional), Microsoft YaHei for Chinese (Simplified), Gisha for Hebrew, and Leelawadee for Thai, and the ClearType Collection fonts designed for document use.
Meiryo includes Latin characters based on Verdana. Malgun Gothic, Microsoft JhengHei, and Microsoft YaHei use a customized Segoe UI. Use of italic versions of these fonts is not recommended. Malgun Gothic, Microsoft JhengHei, and Microsoft YaHei are supplied in regular and bold styles only, meaning italic characters are synthesized by slanting the upright styles. Although Meiryo includes true italic and bold italics, these styles only apply to the Latin characters the Japanese characters remain upright when italic styling is applied.
A variation of Meiryo, called Meiryo UI, is preferred in the ribbons command user interface.
To support locales using these character sets, Segoe UI is replaced with the correct fonts depending on each locale during the localization process.
To license Segoe UI and other Microsoft fonts for distribution with a Windows-based program, contact Monotype.
Note: Guidelines related to style and tone and user interface text are presented in separate articles.
Design concepts
Fonts, typefaces, point sizes, and attributes
In traditional typography, a font describes a combination of a typeface, a point size, and attributes. A typeface is the look of the font. Segoe UI, Tahoma, Verdana, and Arial are all typefaces. Point size refers to the size of the font, measured from the top of the ascenders to the bottom of the descenders, minus the internal spacing (called leading). A point is roughly 1/72 inch. Finally, a font can have attributes of bold or italic.
Informally, people often use font in place of typeface as done in this article but technically, Segoe UI is a typeface, not a font. Each combination of attributes is a unique font (for example, 9 point Segoe UI regular, 10 point Segoe UI bold, and so on).
Serif and sans serif
Typefaces are either serif or sans serif. Serif refers to small turns that often finish the strokes of letters in a font. A sans serif typeface doesn’t have serifs.
Readers generally prefer serif fonts used as body text within a document. The serifs provide a feeling of formality and elegance to a document. For UI text, the need for a clean appearance and the lower resolution of computer monitors makes sans serif typefaces the better choice.
Contrast
Text is easiest to read when there is a large difference between the luminance of the text and the background. Black text on a white background gives the highest contrast dark text on a very light background can provide high contrast as well. This combination is best for primary UI surfaces.
Light text on a dark background offers good contrast, but not as good as dark text on a light background. This combination works well for secondary UI surfaces, such as Explorer task panes, that you want to de-emphasize relative to the primary UI surfaces.
If you want to make sure users read your text, use dark text on a light background.
Affordances
Text can use the following affordances to indicate how it is used:
- Pointer. The I-bar («text select») pointer indicates that the text is selectable, whereas the left-pointing arrow («normal select») pointer indicates that text isn’t.
- Caret. When text has input focus, the caret is the flashing vertical bar that indicates the insertion/selection point in selectable or editable text.
- Box. A box around text that indicates that it’s editable. To reduce the weight of the presentation, the box may be displayed dynamically only when the editable text is selected.
- Foreground color. Light gray indicates that text is disabled. Non-gray colors, especially blue and purple, indicate that text is a link.
- Background color. A light gray background weakly suggests that text is read-only, but in practice read-only text can have any color background.
These affordances are combined for the following meanings:
- Editable. Text displayed in a box, with a text select pointer, a caret (on input focus), and usually on a white background.
- Read-only, selectable. Text with a select pointer and a caret (on input focus).
- Read-only, non-selectable. Text with an arrow pointer.
- Disabled. Light gray text with an arrow pointer, sometimes on a gray background.
Read-only text traditionally has a gray background, but a gray background isn’t necessary. In fact, a gray background can be undesirable, especially for large blocks of text, because it suggests that the text is disabled and discourages reading.
Accessibility and the system font, sizes, and colors
The guidelines for making text accessible to users with disabilities or impairments can be boiled down to one simple rule: Respect the user’s settings by always using the system font, sizes, and colors.
If you do only one thing.
Respect the user’s settings by always using the system font, sizes, and colors.
Developers: From code, you can determine the system font properties (including its size) using the GetThemeFont API function. You can determine the system colors using the GetThemeSysColor API function.
Because you can’t make any assumptions about users’ system theme settings, you should:
- Always base your font colors and backgrounds off system theme colors. Never make your own colors based on fixed RGB (red, green, blue) values.
- Always match system text colors with their corresponding background colors. For example, if you choose COLOR_STATICTEXT for the text color, you must also choose COLOR_STATIC for the background color.
- Always create new fonts based on proportional-sized variations of the system font. Given the system font metrics, you can create bold, italic, larger, and smaller variations.
A simple way to ensure that your program respects users’ settings is to test using a different font size and a high contrast color scheme. All text should resize and display correctly in the chosen color scheme.
Windows 10 font list
Introduction
An important development in Windows 10 is the Universal Windows Platform (UWP): a converged app platform allowing a developer to create a single app that can run on all Windows devices. Windows fonts are one aspect of this convergence: Windows 10 introduces a recommended UWP font set that is common across all editions that support UWP, including Desktop, Server, and Xbox.
A number of additional fonts are available for Desktop and Server, including all other fonts from previous releases. However, not all of these are pre-installed by default in all images. In order to make disk usage and font choices more relevant to users according to the languages that they use, a number of fonts have been moved into optional, on-demand packages. These packages are designed around the different scripts that fonts are primarily intended to support, and most are installed automatically by Windows Update when the associated languages are enabled in language settings (for example, by enabling a keyboard). Any of these Feature On Demand (FOD) packages can also be installed manually via Settings. To add font packages manually, select the Start button, and then select Settings > Apps > Apps & features > Manage optional features.
The following is a list of desktop font sets that are present in the most updated version (2004, May 2020 release) of Windows 10.
Below you will also find list of fonts in each of the Feature On Demand (FOD) packages.
Please note: Not all of the Desktop fonts will be in non-desktop editions of Windows 10 such as Xbox, HoloLens, Surface Hub, etc.
| Family | Font Name | File Name | Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arial | Arial | Arial.ttf | 7.00 |
| Arial Italic | Ariali.ttf | 7.00 | |
| Arial Bold | Arialbd.ttf | 7.00 | |
| Arial Bold Italic | Arialbi.ttf | 7.00 | |
| Arial Black | Arial Black | Ariblk.ttf | 5.23 |
| Bahnschrift | Bahnschrift * | Bahnschrift.ttf | 2.06 |
| Calibri | Calibri Light | Calibril.ttf | 6.23 |
| Calibri Light Italic | Calibrili.ttf | 6.23 | |
| Calibri | Calibri.ttf | 6.23 | |
| Calibri Italic | Calibrii.ttf | 6.23 | |
| Calibri Bold | Calibrib.ttf | 6.23 | |
| Calibri Bold Italic | Calibriz.ttf | 6.23 | |
| Cambria | Cambria | Cambria.ttc | 6.99 |
| Cambria Italic | Cambriai.ttf | 6.98 | |
| Cambria Bold | Cambriab.ttf | 6.98 | |
| Cambria Bold Italic | Cambriaz.ttf | 6.98 | |
| Cambria Math | Cambria Math | Cambria.ttc | 6.99 |
| Candara | Candara Light * | Candaral.ttf | 5.63 |
| Candara Light Italic * | Candarali.ttf | 5.63 | |
| Candara | Candara.ttf | 5.62 | |
| Candara Italic | Candarai.ttf | 5.62 | |
| Candara Bold | Candarab.ttf | 5.62 | |
| Candara Bold Italic | Candaraz.ttf | 5.62 | |
| Comic Sans MS | Comic Sans MS | Comic.ttf | 5.14 |
| Comic Sans MS Italic | Comici.ttf | 5.14 | |
| Comic Sans MS Bold | Comicbd.ttf | 5.14 | |
| Comic Sans MS Bold Italic | Comicz.ttf | 5.14 | |
| Consolas | Consolas | Consola.ttf | 7.00 |
| Consolas Italic | Consolai.ttf | 7.00 | |
| Consolas Bold | Consolab.ttf | 7.00 | |
| Consolas Bold Italic | Consolaz.ttf | 7.00 | |
| Constantia | Constantia | Constan.ttf | 5.93 |
| Constantia Italic | Constani.ttf | 5.93 | |
| Constantia Bold | Constanb.ttf | 5.93 | |
| Constantia Bold Italic | Constanz.ttf | 5.93 | |
| Corbel | Corbel Light * | Corbell.ttf | 6.01 |
| Corbel Light Italic * | Corbelli.ttf | 6.01 | |
| Corbel | Corbel.ttf | 6.01 | |
| Corbel Italic | Corbeli.ttf | 6.01 | |
| Corbel Bold | Corbelb.ttf | 6.01 | |
| Corbel Bold Italic | Corbelz.ttf | 6.01 | |
| Courier New | Courier New | Cour.ttf | 6.92 |
| Courier New Italic | Couri.ttf | 6.91 | |
| Courier New Bold | Courbd.ttf | 6.92 | |
| Courier New Bold Italic | Courbi.ttf | 6.91 | |
| Ebrima | Ebrima | Ebrima.ttf | 5.14 |
| Ebrima Bold | Ebrimabd.ttf | 5.14 | |
| Franklin Gothic Medium | Franklin Gothic Medium | Framd.ttf | 5.02 |
| Franklin Gothic Medium Italic | Framdit.ttf | 5.01 | |
| Gabriola | Gabriola | Gabriola.ttf | 5.93 |
| Gadugi | Gadugi | Gadugi.ttf | 1.12 |
| Gadugi Bold | Gadugib.ttf | 1.12 | |
| Georgia | Georgia | Georgia.ttf | 5.59 |
| Georgia Italic | Georgiai.ttf | 5.59 | |
| Georgia Bold | Georgiab.ttf | 5.59 | |
| Georgia Bold Italic | Georgiaz.ttf | 5.59 | |
| HoloLens MDL2 Assets | HoloLens MDL2 Assets * | Holomdl2.ttf | 2.02 |
| Impact | Impact | Impact.ttf | 5.11 |
| Ink Free | Ink Free * | Inkfree.ttf | 1.00 |
| Javanese Text | Javanese Text | Javatext.ttf | 1.10 |
| Leelawadee UI | Leelawadee UI | Leelawui.ttf | 5.05 |
| Leelawadee UI Semilight | Leeluisl.ttf | 5.05 | |
| Leelawadee UI Bold | Leelauib.ttf | 5.05 | |
| Lucida Console | Lucida Console | Lucon.ttf | 5.01 |
| Lucida Sans Unicode | Lucida Sans Unicode | L_10646.ttf | 5.01 |
| Malgun Gothic | Malgun Gothic | Malgun.ttf | 6.68 |
| Malgun Gothic Bold | Malgunbd.ttf | 6.68 | |
| Malgun Gothic Semilight * | Malgunsl.ttf | 6.68 | |
| Marlett | Marlett | Marlett.ttf | 5.01 |
| Microsoft Himalaya | Microsoft Himalaya | Himalaya.ttf | 5.23 |
| Microsoft JhengHei | Microsoft JhengHei Light | Msjhl.ttc | 6.14 |
| Microsoft JhengHei | Msjh.ttc | 6.14 | |
| Microsoft JhengHei Bold | MSJHBD.ttc | 6.13 | |
| Microsoft JhengHei UI Light | Msjhl.ttc | 6.14 | |
| Microsoft JhengHei UI | Msjh.ttc | 6.14 | |
| Microsoft JhengHei UI Bold | MSJHBD.ttc | 6.13 | |
| Microsoft New Tai Lue | Microsoft New Tai Lue | Ntailu.ttf | 5.99 |
| Microsoft New Tai Lue Bold | Ntailub.ttf | 5.99 | |
| Microsoft PhagsPa | Microsoft PhagsPa | Phagspa.ttf | 6.00 |
| Microsoft PhagsPa Bold | PhagsPaB.ttf | 6.00 | |
| Microsoft Sans Serif | Microsoft Sans Serif | Micross.ttf | 7.00 |
| Microsoft Tai Le | Microsoft Tai Le | Taile.ttf | 6.00 |
| Microsoft Tai Le Bold | TaiLeb.ttf | 6.00 | |
| Microsoft YaHei | Microsoft YaHei Light | Msyhl.ttc | 6.23 |
| Microsoft YaHei | Msyh.ttc | 6.25 | |
| Microsoft YaHei Bold | Msyhbd.ttc | 6.25 | |
| Microsoft YaHei UI Light | Msyhl.ttc | 6.23 | |
| Microsoft YaHei UI | Msyh.ttc | 6.25 | |
| Microsoft YaHei UI Bold | Msyhbd.ttc | 6.25 | |
| Microsoft Yi Baiti | Microsoft Yi Baiti | Msyi.ttf | 6.00 |
| MingLiU-ExtB | MingLiU-ExtB | Mingliub.ttc | 7.02 |
| PMingLiU-ExtB | Mingliub.ttc | 7.02 | |
| MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB | Mingliub.ttc | 7.02 | |
| Mongolian Baiti | Mongolian Baiti | Monbaiti.ttf | 5.53 |
| MS Gothic | MS Gothic | Msgothic.ttc | 5.32 |
| MS PGothic | Msgothic.ttc | 5.32 | |
| MS UI Gothic | Msgothic.ttc | 5.32 | |
| MV Boli | MV Boli | Mvboli.ttf | 6.84 |
| Myanmar Text | Myanmar Text | Mmrtext.ttf | 1.18 |
| Myanmar Text Bold | Mmrtextb.ttf | 1.18 | |
| Nirmala UI | Nirmala UI Semilight | Nirmalas.ttf | 1.40 |
| Nirmala UI | Nirmala.ttf | 1.40 | |
| Nirmala UI Bold | Nirmalab.ttf | 1.40 | |
| Palatino Linotype | Palatino Linotype | Pala.ttf | 5.03 |
| Palatino Linotype Italic | Palai.ttf | 5.03 | |
| Palatino Linotype Bold | Palab.ttf | 5.03 | |
| Palatino Linotype Bold Italic | Palabi.ttf | 5.03 | |
| Segoe MDL2 Assets | Segoe MDL2 Assets * | Segmdl2.ttf | 1.82 |
| Segoe Print | Segoe Print | Segoepr.ttf | 5.04 |
| Segoe Print Bold | Segoeprb.ttf | 5.04 | |
| Segoe Script | Segoe Script | Segoesc.ttf | 5.02 |
| Segoe Script Bold | Segoescb.ttf | 5.02 | |
| Segoe UI | Segoe UI Light | Segoeuil.ttf | 5.62 |
| Segoe UI Light Italic | Seguili.ttf | 5.32 | |
| Segoe UI Semilight | Segoeuisl.ttf | 5.62 | |
| Segoe UI Semilight Italic | Seguisli.ttf | 5.32 | |
| Segoe UI | Segoeui.ttf | 5.62 | |
| Segoe UI Italic | Segoeuii.ttf | 5.32 | |
| Segoe UI Semibold | Seguisb.ttf | 5.62 | |
| Segoe UI Semibold Italic | Seguisbi.ttf | 5.32 | |
| Segoe UI Bold | Segoeuib.ttf | 5.62 | |
| Segoe UI Bold Italic | Segoeuiz.ttf | 5.32 | |
| Segoe UI Black | Seguibl.ttf | 2.02 | |
| Segoe UI Black Italic | Seguibli.ttf | 2.02 | |
| Segoe UI Historic | Segoe UI Historic * | Seguihis.ttf | 1.03 |
| Segoe UI Emoji | Segoe UI Emoji | Seguiemj.ttf | 1.29 |
| Segoe UI Symbol | Segoe UI Symbol | Seguisym.ttf | 6.23 |
| SimSun | SimSun | Simsun.ttc | 5.16 |
| NSimSun | Simsun.ttc | 5.16 | |
| SimSun-ExtB | Simsunb.ttf | 5.03 | |
| Sitka | Sitka Small | Sitka.ttc | 1.12 |
| Sitka Small Italic | SitkaI.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Small Bold | SitkaB.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Small Bold Italic | SitkaZ.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Text | Sitka.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Text Italic | SitkaI.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Text Bold | SitkaB.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Text Bold Italic | SitkaZ.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Subheading | Sitka.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Subheading Italic | SitkaI.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Subheading Bold | SitkaB.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Subheading Bold Italic | SitkaZ.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Heading | Sitka.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Heading Italic | SitkaI.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Heading Bold | SitkaB.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Heading Bold Italic | SitkaZ.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Display | Sitka.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Display Italic | SitkaI.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Display Bold | SitkaB.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Display Bold Italic | SitkaZ.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Banner | Sitka.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Banner Italic | SitkaI.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Banner Bold | SitkaB.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sitka Banner Bold Italic | SitkaZ.ttc | 1.12 | |
| Sylfaen | Sylfaen | Sylfaen.ttf | 5.06 |
| Symbol | Symbol | Symbol.ttf | 5.01 |
| Tahoma | Tahoma | Tahoma.ttf | 7.00 |
| Tahoma Bold | Tahomabd.ttf | 7.00 | |
| Times New Roman | Times New Roman | Times.ttf | 7.01 |
| Times New Roman Italic | Timesi.ttf | 7.01 | |
| Times New Roman Bold | Timesbd.ttf | 7.01 | |
| Times New Roman Bold Italic | Timesbi.ttf | 7.01 | |
| Trebuchet MS | Trebuchet MS | Trebuc.ttf | 5.15 |
| Trebuchet MS Italic | Trebucit.ttf | 5.15 | |
| Trebuchet MS Bold | Trebucbd.ttf | 5.15 | |
| Trebuchet MS Bold Italic | Trebucbi.ttf | 5.15 | |
| Verdana | Verdana | Verdana.ttf | 5.33 |
| Verdana Italic | Verdanai.ttf | 5.33 | |
| Verdana Bold | Verdanab.ttf | 5.33 | |
| Verdana Bold Italic | Verdanaz.ttf | 5.33 | |
| Webdings | Webdings | Webdings.ttf | 5.01 |
| Wingdings | Wingdings | Wingding.ttf | 5.01 |
| Yu Gothic | Yu Gothic Light | YuGothL.ttc | 1.90 |
| Yu Gothic Regular | YuGothR.ttc | 1.90 | |
| Yu Gothic Medium * | Yugothm.ttc | 1.90 | |
| Yu Gothic Bold | YuGothB.ttc | 1.90 | |
| Yu Gothic UI Light * | YuGothL.ttc | 1.90 | |
| Yu Gothic UI Semilight * | YuGothR.ttc | 1.90 | |
| Yu Gothic UI Regular * | Yugothm.ttc | 1.90 | |
| Yu Gothic UI Semibold * | YuGothB.ttc | 1.90 | |
| Yu Gothic UI Bold * | YuGothB.ttc | 1.90 |
Fonts included in Feature On Demand (FOD) packages
Here’s a comprehensive listing of which font families are included with each of the optional font features. Some font families may include multiple fonts for different weights and styles.
