May 12, 2023

How to make your text more accessible

Find all of Google Fonts’ typefaces, articles, and resources to make your text easier to read

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Google Fonts is proud to offer many typefaces that were designed to make reading easier. The site also has typefaces that were approved by some international educational institutions for educational materials and to teach handwriting.

Below you will find a summary of articles about those typefaces and other subjects related to readability, legibility, and text accessibility.

If you want to see the usage statistics for any of the fonts listed below, go to the About section of any specimen page on fonts.google.com and scroll to the Usage section.

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Typefaces designed for improved accessibility

In alphabetical order:

Typeface Download link

Resources

Andika

SIL designed the Andika typeface to maximize legibility, especially for new readers of all ages.

Download Andika New SIL typefaces

Atkinson Hyperlegible

Atkinson Hyperlegible was developed specifically to increase legibility for readers with low vision, and to improve comprehension.

Download Atkinson Hyperlegible From rebranding to readability with Atkinson Hyperlegible

Australian handwriting fonts

The five Australian Foundation Fonts exemplify proper handwriting styles that are aligned with regional Australian educational requirements. The fonts are used to teach writing in English and other languages using the Latin writing system and include common math symbols.

Edu VIC WA NT Beginner for Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory

EDU NSW ACT Foundation for New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory

Edu SA Beginner for South Australia

Edu TAS Beginner for Tasmania

Edu QLD Beginner for Queensland

The handwriting fonts that help Australian students learn how to read and write are now available in Google Workspace

Japanese Morisawa Universal Design fonts

The Morisawa BIZ Universal Design (UD) font families were developed using the principles of universal design (UD) to ensure legibility and readability. They are the most widely used fonts in education publishing in Japan​.

Download Morisawa fonts Morisawa BIZ Universal Design (UD) Japanese fonts added to Google Fonts and Google Workspace

Lexend

An educational therapist thinks one of the main factors in reading problems is hidden in plain sight. It’s the font! She made a font called Lexend to help people read better.

Download Lexend

Clean and clear: making reading easier with Lexend

Partnering to change how the world reads: Expanding Lexend to different weights

Eine Partnerschaft mit dem Ziel, das Leseerlebnis weltweit zu verändern: Erweiterung von Lexend um verschiedene Schriftstärken (German)

Noto

The Noto project has fonts for over 1,000 languages and over 150 writing systems and provides fonts for minority languages that didn’t previously have digital fonts. Without digital fonts, minority language communities had to scan printed materials for people to read online. These scanned images were not readable by screen readers and would often be hard to read when enlarged. With digital fonts, people can increase the type size and read more comfortably.

Download Noto

Preserving endangered languages with Noto fonts

Noto Fonts: Preserving endangered languages & accessibility (video)

Readex Pro

Readex Pro uses vision research to possibly make reading easier for Arabic readers suffering from visual impairments or dyslexia. The type designers created Readex Pro in Arabic using the methodology behind Lexend, made for Latin.

Download Readex Pro

The Design of Readex Pro: Exploring the boundaries of legibility in Arabic type (English)

‏خط ‏Readex Pro: استكشاف حدود سهولة قراءة النص من خلال خط عربي جديد (Arabic)

Shantell Sans

Years after discovering she was dyslexic, artist and philosopher Shantell Martin partnered with Stephen Nixon and Anya Danilova to create Shantell Sans in Latin and Cyrillic to empower people to read and write, despite their relationship to words.

Download Shantell Sans The Story of Shantell Sans: How an artist created a typeface in Latin and Cyrillic 
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Optical Size variable fonts

Optical size in fonts refers to the design adjustments made to a typeface to optimize its legibility and aesthetics across various sizes. The impact of optical size on text accessibility is significant, as it plays a crucial role in enhancing readability and comprehension for individuals with visual impairments or reading difficulties.

Smaller optical sizes feature wider letter spacing, increased stroke contrast, and more open counters to maintain legibility, while larger optical sizes focus on refining details and proportions for aesthetic appeal. By choosing the appropriate optical size for a given context, designers can ensure that text is both visually appealing and easily readable.

Learn more: Choosing typefaces that have optical sizes

To find a font that has an optical size axis, go to the variable fonts page and follow these steps:

Step 1: Select “opsz” in the dropdown menu.

Step 2:  Scroll through the list of available fonts and select one.

Step 3: Go to the Type Tester and see how the selected text changes with and without the optical size axis.

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Information about reading research, readability and accessibility in type

How type influences readability

This article is a brief overview of how people read focusing on how those with normal or corrected vision (with glasses/spectacles or contact lenses) read letters, words, phrases and longer texts. (It does not cover the use of braille.) This overview also introduces how typographic decisions can influence the reading process.

Introducing accessibility in typography

The article discusses choosing accessible type, typesetting, color, text size and spacing, hyperlinks, non-text elements, and text in images.

This is an ongoing blog post that may be updated if there are new articles or announcements about accessibility text.