Looking for Noto? It’s now on the Google Fonts website and API
Noto means “I write, I note, I mark,” in Latin (from the verb “notare”). The new Noto project website (fonts.google.com/noto) from Google Fonts makes it easier to:
- Write with 15,000 more Unicode characters than before (a 24% increase) and in 66 new Noto font families from Sign Writing to Syriac
- Notate with Noto Music notes
- Leave your mark with a visually similar font in many writing scripts from Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese Japanese Korean (CJK), Arabic, and many minority and historical languages.
The Noto name also comes from the mission to provide fonts for almost all Unicode scripts without the tofu-like boxes that appear when a user’s device or computer can’t display letterforms. Noto = “no to(fu).”
The Noto project is bigger and better than ever, with high-quality, free fonts for writing in all modern and ancient languages in multiple weights and widths—in sans, serif, mono, and other styles. There are new Noto Serif font families for 10 scripts: Ahom, Balinese, Dogra, Grantha, Gurmukhi, Khojki, Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong, Tangut, and Yezidi. The previously-supported scripts of Looped Thai, Rashi Hebrew, Traditional Nushu, and Serif Tamil Slanted all have new designs. Noto Sans CJK is the world’s first font that’s variable in weight and covers all Unicode characters for Chinese, Japanese and Korean in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). (The font was made by Adobe, with contributions from Changzhou SinoType, Iwata, Sandoll, and Arphic. It’s also available from Adobe as Source Han Sans.) Other Noto fonts have been updated to include bug fixes and additional characters recently added by Unicode.
Noto fonts have the same level of quality across different writing systems. If you’re working on documents in a language that you don’t know, or a document that includes foreign phrases, it’s hard to tell whether a font in another writing system or language is of good quality. If you choose a Noto font for that language, you know you’re using something good.
The fonts are now easier to browse and preview on the Google Fonts website, and are available via the Google Fonts API for fast and easy use as web fonts in different styles. In recent years Noto fonts were only available as development builds on Github. Now, the new website offers all of the Noto fonts with a quick and simple download feature. The downloaded ZIPs contain static and variable fonts for offline use.
The all-new look is fully integrated with the rest of the Google Fonts catalog site, which also includes icons. Preview and explore each Noto font family, learn about the different writing systems, and with variable fonts (design.google/library/variable-fonts-are-here-to-stay), choose custom weights and widths. If you’re using another (non-Noto) font for European scripts, you can now use Noto as companion fonts for more writing systems and match the other font's weights, precisely.
Noto benefits a variety of users, from software and operating system (OS) vendors and app developers supporting multilingual text, to small publishers of online newsletters for endangered language communities. They can use the free fonts, easy licensing terms, and simple ways to bundle Noto fonts with apps. Android, Linux, macOS and iOS systems already include (bundle) many Noto fonts.
Another Latin meaning of Noto is “I signify.” Noto, as the largest repository of scripts for minority languages, signifies that minority language communities, who previously couldn’t communicate online without a digital font, now have a way to write in their own languages and preserve their cultural and linguistic heritage.
It’s your turn to make your mark with Noto — check out the new Noto website (fonts.google.com/noto) and write, note, and signify with Noto today!