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10 Best fonts to use in your next PowerPoint presentation

• Written by: Elly Hughes
• Categories: PowerPoint design
• Comments: 15

The design choices we make in our presentations – the colours, the icons, the photography and illustrations – all form a kind of shorthand through which our audiences recognise our brand and get a feel for the message we’re aiming to communicate. The same goes for the fonts we use. Fonts have as big an impact on design style as the visuals. Beautiful photography and well-designed icons can all be undermined by a poorly-chosen typeface. You need to use a font that aligns with the rest of your design style, and with the personality you’re trying to convey. You need a font with the right ‘voice.’

But how do we pick one? Before we get into our recommendations for 10 of the best presentation fonts, let’s run through some of the questions you can ask to help you decide.

Is it a Windows-standard font?

Before we get started this is probably the most important question to ask is if your font should be Windows-standard.

Free download: If you’re not sure what is Windows-standard and what isn’t, then  download this list of Windows-standard fonts for your reference.

We’ll have a look at custom fonts later in this article, but one last question to ask is if the font you intend to use is Windows-standard. Why does this matter? Well, if you make a beautiful presentation using a custom font and then send it to your colleague who doesn’t have the font installed, their version of the presentation will be a huge mess of mis-sized default fonts that isn’t really fit for purpose.

So, if you’re going to be using your presentation on multiple machines, you need something that will work on all of them – you need a Windows-standard font.

And, in case you were wondering, the ten we recommend here are all on that list.

Are you choosing a font for headings or body text?

The first thing to consider is where your text will be used – does it need to be easily readable in longer paragraphs and smaller sizes? Or can you afford to go bigger? Are you looking for a larger, more impactful slide title?

Whether your font is for heading or body text will help inform your answer to the next question…

Serif or sans serif?

Serif fonts have little ticks or ‘wings’ at the end of their lines, and are usually associated with serious, business-like, intellectual content, whereas sans serif fonts – like this one – have no marks on the ends of their lines, and are usually seen as modern, sleek and clean.

General wisdom is that serif fonts are better for print and for body text, as the serifs lead the eye from one character to the next like joined handwriting. Alternatively, sans serif fonts are better for titles and text displayed on a screen. But these are not hard and fast rules! A popular idea is to choose one of each, perhaps titles will be sans serif and body text will be serif, but it’s up to you – choose what feels right for your brand. Do you want to appeal to tradition, to intellectual weight with a serif font, or do you want your text to feel modern, to speak of technology and progress with a sans serif choice? Which leads to the final consideration…

How much familiarity do you want?

Many of the most popular typefaces already have well established voices. Everyone knows Times New Roman is serious, respectable, reliable. Everyone knows Arial is clear, no-nonsense, professional. If you want your audience to feel the familiarity of these tried and tested fonts, easily done! Or do you want to escape the familiar, be a little bit unique and memorable with a font your audience hasn’t already seen that day?

Once you have the answers to these questions, and have decided on the ‘voice’ you want to convey, you are finally ready to start searching for your font! Read on for our recommendations of 10 of the best fonts you can use for your next presentation.

10 best presentation fonts

1. garamond.

‘Garamond’ actually refers to a style of font, rather than one font in particular. Some examples you may have heard of include Adobe Garamond, Monotype Garamond and Garamond ITC. All of these fonts are slightly different, but all have their origins in the work of Claude Garamond, who designed the original punch cuts in the 1500s, making Garamond fonts some of the oldest around.

Prior to Claude Garamond’s work, fonts were designed to mimic the handwriting of scribes. Garamond’s typefaces however (there are 34 attributed to him), were designed in the Roman style, with the letters’ ascenders vertical and the crossbar of the letter ‘e’ horizontal, instead of slanted as in earlier calligraphic fonts. The letters were designed this way to increase legibility in print, which is what makes Garamond fonts such a great choice for body text. Such a great choice in fact, that the entire Harry Potter series is printed in Adobe Garamond. Outside of print, Garamond fonts have been used in the logos of numerous brands, including Rolex and Abercrombie and Fitch, and giants Google and Apple.

With their rich history and elegant readability, you can be confident that a Garamond font will bring a timeless sophistication to your slides, while keeping your text legible.

2. Palatino

Palatino was designed by Hermann Zapf in 1949. Based on the type styles of the Italian Renaissance, Palatino draws influence from calligraphy, and is in fact named after master calligrapher Giambattista Palatino – a contemporary of Claude Garamond. Zapf intended Palatino for use in headings, advertisements and printing. More specifically, it was designed to remain legible when printed on low quality paper, printed at small size or viewed at a distance.

Palatino Linotype is the version of the font included with Microsoft products, and has been altered slightly from the original for optimum display on screens. Book Antiqua, also a Microsoft default font, is very similar, almost impossible to tell from Palatino Linotype.

Both of these fonts are good choices for body text – a little unusual, they will set your slides apart in a sea of Arial and Times New Roman, while with their airy counters and smooth, calligraphic lines, maintaining elegance and readability.

Verdana was designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft in 1996, deliberately crafted for use on computer screens. The letters are widely spaced, with wide counters and tall lowercase letters, making this font extremely readable, especially when displayed at small sizes. Verdana is also nearly ubiquitous, it has been included with all versions of Windows and Office since its creation. One survey estimates it is available on 99.7% of Windows computers, and 98.05% of Macs. On the one hand, this makes it a very safe bet – you are almost guaranteed your presentation will appear as you intended on all devices, but on the other hand, you may not stand out from the crowd as much as you may like!

You can’t argue with its legibility though. Verdana is an excellent font to use for small text, for example, to keep your footnotes, references and disclaimers readable. Or, for a safer choice, Verdana’s unobtrusive, effortlessly legible characters will keep your audience’s attention on what you have said, not the font you’ve used to say it.

If you’ve used a Windows computer, used Skype, played on an Xbox 360 or just seen the Microsoft logo, you have seen a font from the Segoe family. Microsoft uses Segoe fonts for its logos and marketing materials, and Segoe UI has been the default operating system font since Windows Vista. This is all down to its beautiful simplicity, and on-screen legibility. Similarly to Verdana, Segoe fonts look perfect on screens and at small sizes, and are warm and inviting while maintaining the airy, aspirational feel of technology and progress. Unlike Verdana though – which has wide spaces and heavier letters – Segoe fonts are also a great choice for titles and headers.

Another fun bonus from the Segoe font family is the expansive set of symbols and icons it offers. From the insert tab in PowerPoint, click symbol, and change the symbol font to either Segoe UI Symbol, or Segoe UI Emoji, and marvel at the reams and reams of symbols to choose from. There are shapes, arrows, musical notes, mathematical notation, scientific notation, there are animals, buildings, food, Mahjong tiles, Fraktur letters, I Ching hexagrams… Likely any symbol you could possibly want is in there!

So for easy to read body text, light, elegant headers, or a quick and easy way to bring just about any icon you can think of into your presentation, the Segoe font family is a perfect choice.

5. Franklin Gothic

What is it that makes a font ‘gothic?’ There’s certainly nothing about Franklin Gothic that speaks of bats in belfries or doomed lovers wandering the Yorkshire moors! Well, confusingly, when describing fonts ‘Gothic’ can mean completely opposite things – it is sometimes used to refer to a Medieval-style, blackletter font, or conversely, it can be used as a synonym for the clean, geometric, sans serif fonts that began their rise to prominence in the early 19 th century. And that’s certainly the category Franklin Gothic fits into.

Designed by Morris Fuller for the American Type Founders in 1902 and named after the American printer and Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, Franklin Gothic is a classic American font that has been described as ‘square-jawed and strong-armed, yet soft-spoken.’ With its wide range of weights and widths, and interesting design details (take a look at the uppercase Q and lowercase g for some beautiful, unusual curves, and the uppercase A and M for subtly varying line weights), Franklin Gothic will look strong and approachable as your headings, and classy and legible as your body text.

Candara was designed by Gary Munch, and released with Windows Vista in 2008. It is part of a family of six Microsoft fonts, all beginning with the letter C (Calibri, Cambria, Consolas, Corbel and Constantia), that were all optimised for use with Microsoft’s ClearType rendering system.

The most interesting thing about Candara, and what makes it such a beautiful font to use, is the influence of architecture on its design. If you look closely at the letters’ ascenders, you will notice an entasis at their ends, which means there is a slight convex curve towards the ends of the lines – a feature best known from classical architecture. Columns built by ancient Greek, Roman, Incan, Aztec and Chinese empires were built with this convex curve, a particularly famous example being the columns of the Parthenon in Athens. Historians believe columns were built in this way to give an impression of greater strength, to correct for the visual illusion that very tall, straight columns appear to bow inwards as they rise.

And the architectural influence doesn’t end there, Candara’s diagonal lines – best seen in the capital X, N and A – have been designed with unusual ogee curves. Most often seen in Gothic arches from 13 th and 14 th century Britain, an ogee curve is part convex, part concave, forming a shallow S shape as it rises. Two ogee curves meeting in the middle form an arch that rises to a point – like Candara’s capital A.

These entases and ogee curves are what makes this font pleasingly unusual. At first glance, it is a standard, easy-to-read sans serif that looks crisp and clear on screen, but on closer inspection, Candara has some interesting design details that set it apart. Candara is perhaps not the most serious looking font, but if you’d like something slightly unusual, but still professional and perfectly legible, consider Candara.

Similarly to Garamond, Bodoni refers not to a single font, but to a family of typefaces inspired by the centuries old work of a master typographer. Giambattista Bodoni was an extremely successful master printer who lived and worked in the Italian city of Parma through the late 18 th and early 19 th century. Along with a French typographer named Firmin Didot, Bodoni was responsible for developing the ‘New Face’ style of lettering, characterised by extreme contrast between thick and razor thin lines.

You will have seen this in action if you have ever glanced at a fashion magazine. Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle all print their names in a Bodoni font. In fact, these fonts are so prevalent in fashion graphic design that they have become a shorthand for the elegance and refinement the fashion world idealises.

The sharp lines and smooth curves of these fonts have been compared to the precise geometries of fabric patterns, and their delicate, graceful forms afford them a sophisticated femininity. This delicacy also make these fonts perfect for overlaying photographs. You will notice from the fashion magazine covers how the titles maintain their presence, but don’t overpower the photograph beneath. You can use this to great effect in your own designs; if you need to layer text over photographs, Bodoni fonts could be a stylish and sophisticated answer.

Best used in headings displayed at large sizes where contrasting line weights will have maximum impact, Bodoni fonts will instantly instil your design with an effortless, timeless elegance. Bodoni himself wrote that the beauty of type lies in “conformity without ambiguity, variety without dissonance, and equality and symmetry without confusion.” Bodoni fonts have all those things in abundance, and are some of the most beautiful fonts you can choose to use.

If Bodoni fonts are just that bit too extreme, try Bell MT instead. They have similar roots – both Bodoni and Bell fonts were influenced by the work of French typographer Fermin Didot, and have the same ‘New Face’ style contrast between thick and thin lines, just to a lesser extent with Bell fonts.

Designed in 1788 by the punch cutter Richard Austin, commissioned by the publisher John Bell, Bell fonts share similarities with Didot style fonts, but also with softer, rounder Roman fonts of the time such as Baskerville. The influence of flowing, cursive style fonts such as Baskerville can be seen in letters such as the uppercase Q and K, and the italic Y and z , which all have some beautiful, unusual curves. In fact, Bell MT is particularly attractive in italic, almost script-like while maintaining legibility. This makes it an excellent choice for sub-headings, as a softer counterpart to a sans serif heading. Or use it for quotes and testimonials, set in a beautiful Bell italic they will be inviting and authentic, as well as clear and readable.

Coming from an indigenous Salishan language, Tahoma is one of the original Native American names for Mount Rainier in the US state of Washington.

Tahoma the font however was designed by the British typographer Matthew Carter working for Microsoft, and was released with Windows 95. It is a very close cousin of Verdana, but though similar, Tahoma is a little narrower and more tightly spaced than Verdana, giving it a more slender, slightly more formal feel. It is another example of a font that was designed specifically for screen use, meaning it will look good at a wide range of sizes, and on a wide range of screens, perfect if you are making a presentation that will need to display properly on multiple devices.

In fact, perfect clarity is what sets Tahoma apart from some similar sans serif fonts. The image below shows the characters uppercase I (eye), lowercase l (ell) and number 1 (one) written in four popular sans serif fonts (from left to right) Century Gothic, Calibri, Gill Sans and Tahoma. Notice how in every font but Tahoma, at least two characters are indistinguishable. Gill Sans, for example, is a disaster here. It’s unlikely you’ll ever need to write these three characters in quick succession, but for scientific, technical or mathematical content, clear distinction between these characters can be very important – and Tahoma gives you that.

So with its easy to read, screen friendly design and readily distinguishable characters, Tahoma is an ideal choice for the slightly more formal, but still approachable, scientific or technical presentation.

Designed by Jeremy Tankard and released in 2005, like Candara Corbel was also designed to work well with Microsoft’s ClearType rendering system, meaning it is specifically designed to work well on screens. Tankard described his aim when designing Corbel as ‘to give an uncluttered and clean appearance on screen,’ and describes the font as ‘legible, clear, and functional at small sizes.’ All of these things are important boxes to tick when you’re looking for a presentation font!

Corbel is a little more serious than Candara, again in Tankard’s words: ‘functional but not bland,’ designed to be ‘less cuddly, more assertive.’ The dots above the i’s and j’s for example are square, not rounded. The tail of the uppercase Q is straight and horizontal, not a whimsical curve. This makes Corbel a good choice for more serious or technical content, it is legible and without excessive embellishment, yet not characterless or overused.

One of the most interesting design details with Corbel is the fact that with this font, numbers are lowercase. What does this mean? Take a look at the image below, where you can see a comparison of how the numbers 0-9 appear in Corbel with how they appear in another popular sans serif font, Segoe UI. Notice how the Corbel numbers don’t line up exactly? This is know as lowercase or old-style numerals.

The purpose of this is to improve how numbers look when they form part of body text – they are a more natural fit with lowercase lettering. Few fonts have this option (for a serif option offering lowercase numbers, consider Georgia, also a Windows standard font), meaning Corbel can make a for a very unique choice. It will be both legible and readable, and its unusual numbers will add a unique and pleasing design touch to your slides.

What about custom fonts?

Sometimes what we want is not the familiar, the comforting, the Arial and the Times New Roman, sometimes we just want something different . This is your opportunity to step into the almost infinite world of custom fonts. Here you can find fonts to fit almost any imaginable need. From timeless and elegant and crisp and futuristic, to ornate scripts and decorative novelties, there will be a custom font for you.

But a word of warning on non-system fonts – custom fonts can be a powerful, attractive component of your presentation design, but if used incorrectly, they can also be its undoing.

A custom font will only appear in your presentation if it is played on a device with that font installed . On any other device, PowerPoint will replace your beautiful, carefully planned custom font with one of the system defaults, and this can have disastrous consequences for your design.

If your presentation is going to be built and presented exclusively from the same device you shouldn’t have a problem, but if multiple devices or operating systems are involved, or if you intend to share your presentation for others to use, to ensure your fonts survive the jump it is safer to stay in the realms of the system default fonts. There you can be confident your carefully crafted designs will stay exactly as you envisaged them, and you can concentrate on delivering the very best presentation.

You can find a useful PDF here detailing which fonts are available on all platforms for maximum compatibility.

Whatever font you do choose for your next PowerPoint presentation, ask yourself two questions:

• Does this font have the right ‘voice’ for your brand?
• Is it easy to read?

If the answer to both of the above is yes, then you are on to a winner. You know best what fits with your brand, and if a font captures your unique voice, and makes your slides easy for your audience to read, you are one step closer to that perfect presentation.

Further reading

For more advice on choosing the best font for your next presentation, and then making the very best of it in your design, take a look at our other articles:

• 10 typography tips and tricks to get you started
• Advanced typography in PowerPoint
• https://www.wired.co.uk/gallery/futura-font-on-the-moon-christopher-burke-book
• https://fontmeme.com/famous-logos-created-with-futura-font/
• https://cei.org/blog/adobe-garamond-harry-potter-books-not-character-font
• https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/itc/franklin-gothic/
• https://study.com/academy/lesson/entasis-definition-architecture-architects.html
• https://study.com/academy/lesson/ogee-arches-definition-construction.html
• http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/through-thick-and-think-fashion-and-type
• https://www.quora.com/Why-don%E2%80%99t-lowercase-and-uppercase-numbers-exist
• https://typographica.org/on-typography/microsofts-cleartype-font-collection-a-fair-and-balanced-review/
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/cleartype/clear-type-font-collection
• In addition – Wikipedia pages for each font in the list were used

Elly Hughes

Managing consultant, related articles, how to get the most out of powerpoint and pdfs.

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Thank you very much for sharing such useful information!

what is the font you used in the text above

We use GT Walsheim as our corporate font (web, print)(which one has to pay for), but because it’s not a Windows standard font we actually use Segoe UI in our presentations.

What is a Bold font we can use?

What is the name of font you use on this website for writing information ..I want this font

It’s GT Walsheim .

Wow that was good but maybe add Mali to the best fonts for google slides and docs

What is the font of the article?

See above in the comments… GT Walsheim

Loved it. Thanks a lot Bright Carbon team

What font did you write this article in?

See comments above – GT Walsheim, which is a paid font, and not great for presentations as it isn’t on many machines.

Thanks, this helped me with my school presentation!

Absolutely great thank you!

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We were notified on Friday that we’ve been successful in our renewal bid. They were particularly complementary about our presentation and claimed it was one of the best they’ve had. Greg Tufnall Siemens

Helvetica is a basic Sans Serif font with a loyal user base. Originally created in 1957 , Helvetica comes from the Latin word for ‘Switzerland’ where it was born. When you use Helvetica, the top-half part of the text is bigger than in other Sans Serif fonts. For this reason, letters and numbers have a balanced proportionality between the top and bottom segments. As a result, this standard font makes it easier to identify characters from a distance.

As a result of being one of the easiest typecases to read compared to different presentation fonts, Helvetica is great for communicating major points as titles and subheadings in a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

For these reasons, Helvetica is a popular choice for anyone creating posters .

If you are presenting live to a large group of people, Helvetica is your new go-to font! The classic Sans Serif font is tried and tested and ensures the legibility of your slide deck, even for the audience members sitting at the very back. Though it looks good in any form, you can make Helvetica shine even more in a bold font style or all caps. 

Futura is one of the popular Sans Serif fonts and is based on geometric shapes. Its features are based on uncomplicated shapes like circles, triangles, and rectangles. In other words , it mimics clean and precise proportions instead of replicating organic script or handwriting. Futura is a great default font for presentations because of its excellent readability, elegance, and lively personality. 

As one of many standard fonts designed to invoke a sense of efficiency and progress, Futura is best employed when you want to project a modern look and feel in your presentation. Futura is a versatile option ideal for use in both titles and body content, accounting for why it has remained immensely popular since 1927. 

3. Rockwell

The Rockwell font has strong yet warm characters that make it suitable for a variety of presentation types, regardless of whether it’s used in headings or the body text. However, best practice dictates that this standard font should be used in headers and subheadings based on its geometric style. Rockwell is a Geometric Slab Serif , otherwise known as a slab serif font alternative. It is formed almost completely of straight lines, flawless circles, and sharp angles. This Roman font features a tall x-height and even stroke width that provides its strong presence with a somewhat blocky feel.

Monoline and geometric, Rockwell is a beautiful font that can display any text in a way that looks impactful and important. Whether you want to set a mood or announce a critical update or event, you can’t go wrong with this robust font.

Verdana is easily a great choice as one of the top PowerPoint presentation fonts. Its tall lowercase letters and wide spaces contribute significantly towards boosting slide readability even when the text case or font size is small. That’s why Verdana is best for references, citations, footnotes, disclaimers, and so on. Additionally, it can also be used as a body font to extrapolate on slide headings to nail down your key points.

Besides that, it is one of the most widely available fonts, compatible with both Mac and Windows systems. This makes this modern Sans Serif font a safe bet for when you are not certain where and how will you be delivering your presentation. 

Raleway is a modern and lightweight Sans Serif font. Its italicized version has shoulders and bowls in some letters that are a bit off-centered. What this means is that the markings excluding the stem are intentionally lower or higher as compared to other fonts. 

This gives Raleway a slightly artistic look and feels without impacting its readability (and without falling into the custom or decorative fonts category). In fact, many professionals think the swashes and markings actually enhance the font’s readability and legibility. Moreover, Raleway also has a bold version which is heavily used in presentations and slide decks. 

The bottom line is that Raleway is a versatile typeface that can be used in a variety of presentations, either in the body copy or in titles and subheadings. When the titles are capitalized or formatted as bold, captivating your audience becomes a breeze. 

6. Montserrat

Montserrat is one of our favorite PowerPoint fonts for presentation titles and subheadings. The modern serif font is bold, professional, and visually appealing for when you want your headers and titles to really capture the audience’s attention.

Every time you move to the next slide, the viewers will see the headings and instantly understand its core message.  

Another major quality of the Montserrat font is its adaptability and versatility. Even a small change, such as switching up the weight, gives you an entirely different-looking typeface. So you get enough flexibility to be able to use the font in all types of PowerPoint presentations.

Montserrat pairs nicely with a wide range of other fonts. For example, using it with a thin Sans Serif in body paragraphs creates a beautiful contrast in your PowerPoint slides. For this reason, it is usually the first modern Serif font choice of those creating a business plan or marketing presentation in MS PowerPoint. 

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Roboto is a simple sans-serif font that is a good fit for PowerPoint presentations in a wide range of industries. Well-designed and professional, Roboto works especially well when used for body text, making your paragraphs easy to read.

Roboto combines beautifully with several other fonts. When you’re using Roboto for body text, you can have headings and titles that use a script font such as Pacifico, a serif font such as Garamond, or a Sans Serif font such as Gill Sans. 

Bentham is a radiant serif font perfectly suited for headings and subtitles in your PowerPoint slides. It gives your presentation a traditional appearance, and its letter spacing makes your content really easy to read.

You can use this font in uppercase, lowercase, or title case, depending on how it blends with the rest of your slide. For best results, we recommend combining Bentham with a Sans Serif font in your body content. For example, you can use a font such as Open Sans or Futura for the rest of your slide content.

9. Libre-Baskerville

Libre-Baskerville is a free serif Google font. You can pair this classic font with several other fonts to make a PowerPoint presentation with a traditional design. 

One of its best features is that it works equally well in both headings and body copy. It’s clear and easily readable, no matter how you use it. And when used for headings, it works really well in uppercase form. 

Tahoma is one of the fonts that offer the best level of clarity for PowerPoint slides. It has easily distinguishable characters like Verdana, but with the exception of tight spacing to give a more formal appearance.

Designed particularly for screens, Tahoma looks readable on a variety of screen sizes and multiple devices. In fact, this significant aspect is what makes Tahoma stand out from other fonts in the Sans Serif family. 

11. Poppins

Poppins falls within the Sans Serif font category but is a different font of its own uniqueness. The solid vertical terminals make it look strong and authoritative. That’s why it’s great for catchy titles and subheadings, as well as for the body paragraphs. Poppins is a geometric typeface issued by Indian Type Foundry in 2014. It was released as open-source and is available in many font sizes for free on Google Fonts.

When you want something that feels casual and professional in equal measure, pick Poppins should be in the running for the best PowerPoint fonts. 

12. Gill Sans 

Gill Sans is another classic presentation font for when you’re looking to build rapport with your audience. Gill Sans is a friendly and warm Sans Serif font similar to Helvetica. At the same time, it looks strong and professional. 

It’s designed to be easy to read even when used in small sizes or viewed from afar. For this reason, it’s a superior match for headers, and one of the best PowerPoint fonts, especially when combined with body text using Times New Roman or Georgia (not to mention several other fonts you can pair it with for successful results). This is the right font for combing different fonts within a presentation.

13. Palatino

Palatino can be classified as one of the oldest fonts inspired by calligraphic works of the 1940s. This old-style serif typeface was designed by Hermann Zapf and originally released in 1948 by the Linotype foundry. It features smooth lines and spacious counters, giving it an air of elegance and class. 

Palatino was designed to be used for headlines in print media and advertising that need to be viewable from a distance. This attribute makes Palatino a great font suitable for today’s PowerPoint presentations.   

Palatino is also a viable choice for your presentation’s body text. It’s a little different from fonts typically used for body paragraphs. So it can make your presentation content stand out from those using conventional fonts. 

14. Georgia

Georgia typeface has a modern design that few fonts can match for its graceful look. It’s similar to Times New Roman but with slightly larger characters. Even in small font size, Georgia exudes a sense of friendliness; a sense of intimacy many would claim has been eroded from Times New Roman through its overuse. This versatile font was designed by Matthew Carter , who has successfully composed such a typeface family which incorporates high legibility with personality and charisma. Its strokes form Serif characters with ample spacing, making it easily readable even in small sizes and low-resolution screens. 

Another benefit of using this modern font is its enhanced visibility, even when it’s used in the background of your PowerPoint slides. Moreover, the tall lowercase letters contribute to a classic appearance great for any PowerPoint presentation.  

Final Step: Choosing Your Best Font for Presentations

Choosing the right PowerPoint fonts for your future presentations is more of a creative exercise than a scientific one. Unless you need to abide by strict branding guidelines and company policies, there are no rules for the ‘best font’ set in stone. Plus, presentation fonts depend entirely on the environment or audience it is intended for, the nature and format of the project, and the topic of your PowerPoint presentation. 

However, there are certain basic principles rooted in typography that can help you narrow down the evergrowing list of available PowerPoint presentation fonts and choose PowerPoint fonts that will resonate with and have a powerful impact on your target audience.

As discussed in this article, these include font factors such as compatibility with most systems, clarity from a distance, letter spacing, and so on. Luckily for you, our carefully researched and compiled list of best fonts for presentations above was created with these core fundamentals already in mind, saving you time and hassle.

As long as you adopt these best practices for standard fonts without overcomplicating your key message and takeaways, you’ll soon be on your way to designing a brilliant slide deck using a quality PowerPoint font or font family! From all of us here at Piktochart, good luck with your new and improved presentation slides that will surely shine!

Hitesh Sahni is an editor, consultant, and founder of http://smemark.com/ , an upscale content marketing studio helping brands accelerate growth with superior and scalable SEO, PPC, and copywriting services.

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > Different Types of Fonts And How to Choose One

Different Types of Fonts And How to Choose One

With so many types of fonts, how do you choose which to use and when ? Knowing how to choose the right font takes some knowledge of the different types of fonts and what they look like. Use our guide to learn more about fonts and how to decide on the best one for what you’re writing .

You’ll first need to understand the basic styles , which include:

We’ll go through each font style to highlight what it looks like, popular fonts in the style, and what they’re good for.

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What does it look like? The identifying feature of serif fonts is the tiny strokes or projections on every end of a letter. Serifs improve readability by making it easy to distinguish the difference between a lowercase L and a capital I. Some of the most used serif fonts include:

• Times New Roman
• Courier New

What’s it good for? Serif fonts have long been considered the most readable fonts. They’re commonly used in print newspapers, magazines, and books, and are recommended to be used in MLA format . Print media prefers serif fonts because it helps guide the eye along a single line of text.

Despite their readability in print, serif fonts can be problematic with digital media. The letters can blur together on low-resolution images and make it difficult to read. While computer monitors and smartphone screens have improved over the years, serif fonts are still not preferred.

What does it look like? Sans-serif fonts are what you’ll see most commonly in your day-to-day life. These fonts are aptly named as they don’t have the serif projections on the letters (sans means without). You’re probably familiar with some of the most common sans-serif fonts, which are:

What’s it good for? Search engines, websites, and social media platforms prefer sans-serif fonts because of their improved readability on a digital screen. Sans-serif fonts are the simplest fonts available and provide clean text that can be used across many platforms.

What does it look like? Script fonts are inspired by handwriting and calligraphy. You’ll notice that most script fonts will look like they’re in cursive, but not every letter will connect or flow the same as if someone had written it in cursive. Letters will include swooping letters and curls, called swashes. Script fonts typically come in one of two styles in casual and formal fonts. Casual scripts are simpler and easier to read, while formal fonts are more embellished. Common script fonts you might see are:

• Harlow Solid Italic
• Brush Script MT
• Fairwater Script

What’s it good for? You’ve likely seen script fonts on wedding or baby announcements, event invitations, and award certificates. Overall, script fonts aren’t considered easy to read (as you can see above) but can look great and enhance your print when used in the appropriate setting.

What does it look like? Monospaced fonts are fonts that utilize letters that take up the same amount of space. For example, the space for capital A and capital I will occupy the same amount of space on a line as one another. Typically, the A and I don’t take up similar space on a line, but a monospaced typeface will format your text in this way. It also conveys a typewriter feel with its consistent spacing. You’ll also see that some serif or sans-serif fonts fit into a monospaced format as well. Examples of some monospaced fonts include:

• Lucida Sans Typewriter

What’s it good for? While monospaced fonts aren’t always the most appealing to a designer, they do have their place. Monospaced fonts make it easy to create a proportional block of text based on the number of characters you want to use. For instance, if you’re making a sign and have space for 20 characters on each line, monospaced fonts make it easy to count characters without trying to compensate for narrow letters like I and a lowercase L.

What does it look like? The fifth font type has many names that include display, decorative, fantasy, and others, but we’ll go with display for the sake of brevity. Display fonts are the diverse fonts of the bunch. This is where you’ll find different styles like thick scripts, stencils, ultra-light, ultra-bold, and others. The diversity of display fonts comes with their function with signage. Similar to monospace fonts, display fonts can come in serif, sans-serif, and script styles. While display fonts aren’t usually used in everyday writing or as a preferred font on a website, you might see these common fonts on logos and banners:

What’s it good for? If you’re not making a sign, logo, or banner, display fonts don’t have much practical use. They can be difficult to read when small and irritating as the novelty wears off after a few lines. Use display fonts when your project or signage calls for it, but we don’t recommend setting one as your default font for your outgoing emails.

What’s best for you? Knowing how to choose a font depends on how you’re going to use it. For those who regularly send emails, write a blog, or do anything else online, a sans-serif font is always going to be the best choice. Choose something that doesn’t fall under the display category because, again, it can be off-putting after a few lines.

A monospace font can look nice and give a vintage feel that comes with a typewriter but isn’t required for the medium. Someone who’s going to type and send a physical letter of any kind should stick with serif fonts because of their readability.

Knowing how to choose a font for what you need is important. Some types of fonts are considered unprofessional or difficult to read in certain situations.Use this guide to help you make the right decision about a font for what you need.

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How-To Geek

How to quickly change the font on all slides in powerpoint.

If you want to quickly replace fonts in PowerPoint, you'll need to modify the Slide Master template or use the "Replace Fonts" tool. Here's how.

Quick Links

Use the replace fonts tool, use the slide master.

Editing a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation can be time consuming, especially if you're dealing with multiple slides. If you want to change fonts across your presentation, you'll need to use the "Replace Fonts" tool or change the Slide Master template. Here's how.

These instructions work for most  modern versions of Office  on Windows. Mac users will need to change the slide master to change fonts across a presentation instead, but this won't offer the same blanket change approach as the "Replace Fonts" tool.

Related: How to Create a Slide Master in Microsoft PowerPoint

The easiest way to replace the fonts in your presentation is to use the "Replace Fonts" tool. This will search out and replace all examples of a font used across your presentation.

To start, open your PowerPoint presentation. From the "Home" tab on the ribbon bar, click the arrow next to the "Replace" button. In the drop-down menu, select the "Replace Fonts" option.

In the "Replace Fonts" window, select the font you wish to find and replace from the "Replace" drop-down menu.

Choose the font you wish to use instead from the "With" drop-down menu and then click "Replace" to confirm.

The "Replace Fonts" tool will automatically search through your presentation and replace the fonts using the settings you selected. Click the "Close" button when you're done.

You can repeat these steps to replace other fonts, or use the Slide Master view to replace fonts used by your presentation template instead.

While the "Replace Fonts" tool offers the quickest way to replace fonts in your presentation, you can also modify the Slide Master template to customize your fonts. This will ensure that any additional slides you create use the new font, too.

This will only apply to text in boxes that match one of the Slide Master template slides. Any additional text (in custom text boxes) won't be modified, so you'll need to use the "Replace Fonts" tool instead.

To start, open your Microsoft PowerPoint presentation and select View > Slide Master.

In the "Slide Master" view, click on one of the slide templates to view them.

To edit the fonts used by your template, select the "Fonts" button, listed under the "Slide Master" tab on the ribbon bar.

Choose the new font you wish to use from the "Fonts" drop-down menu.

This will update the font used across your PowerPoint Slide Master template. Click the "Close Master View" button to apply the changes.

This will update the font in any text boxes that match your slide templates. Any other fonts (such as those in custom text boxes) will remain unchanged, so you may need to repeat the steps or use the "Replace Fonts" tool instead.

Choosing the Best Font for PowerPoint: 10 Tips & Examples

There’s a fine art to creating a great PowerPont presentation that wows. With so many tricks and features in this little bit of software, it’s more likely to see a bad presentation than a good one (and you don’t want to be that person!)

While there are a lot of factors that contribute to the overall design , choosing a suitable font for PowerPoint is near the top of the list. The audience needs to be able to read the words on the screen with ease, to ensure that your presentation is as effective as possible.

So how do you do it? Where do you start when choosing a font for PowerPoint? We have 10 tips for you with a few examples of PowerPoint slides (and templates) that will impress your audience.

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1. Stick to Fairly Standard Fonts

One of the most fun parts of a design project is getting to sift through fonts and make selections that fit your project. When it comes to PowerPoint, that selection should be pretty limited.

To make the most of your presentation, stick to a standard font to ensure that your presentation will look the same everywhere – and on every computer – you present. If you don’t use a standard font, chances are when you pop the presentation in a new machine, you’ll end up with a jumbled mess of lettering. PowerPoint will try to replace all the fonts it does not recognize with something else.

This can cause readability concerns and even make the presentation look like it’s error-filled (with words that are in odd locations or even missing).

10 standard fonts to try:

2. Incorporate Plenty of Contrast

White and black text is easiest to read. But no type is readable without plenty of contrast between the background and text itself.

Regardless of what font you select, without adequate contrast, readability will be a concern. Opt for light type on a dark background or a light background with dark text.

Consider the environment here as well. Do you plan to show the presentation on a computer monitor or big presentation screen? How these conditions render can impact how much contrast your color choices actually have.

3. Use a Serif and a Sans Serif

Most presentations use two fonts.

• Header font for headlines on each slide.
• Copy or bullet font for supporting text.

You don’t have to use the same font in each location. It’s actually preferred to select two different fonts for these areas of the presentation. For even more impact pair two different fonts, such as a serif and sans serif, so that the font change creates an extra level of contrast and visual interest.

4. Avoid All Caps

When picking a font, stay away from fonts that only include capital letter sets. All caps in presentations have the same effect as all caps in an email. It feels like you are yelling at the audience.

All caps can also be difficult to read if there are more than a couple of words on the screen. Use all caps as sparingly as possible.

5. Stay Away From Scripts and Italics

While scripts, handwriting and novelty typefaces might be pretty, they are often difficult to read. Avoid them in PowerPoint presentations. (There’s usually not enough contrast or size to help them maintain readability from a distance.)

The same is true of italics. Anything you do to a font to add emphasis should make it easier to read. While italics can be a great option online or in print applications, presentations come with a different set of rules. The biggest contributing factor is that text often has to be read from a distance – think about audience members in the back of the room – and any slanting can make that more difficult.

6. Make It Big Enough

One of the biggest issues with fonts in slideshows is often size. How big should the text in a PowerPoint presentation be?

While a lot of that depends on the font you decide to use, there are some guidelines. (These sizes work wonderfully with the 10 fonts options in top No. 1. As well.)

• Minimum font size for main copy and bullets: 18 points
• Preferred font size for main copy and bullets: 24 points
• Preferred font size for headers or titles: 36 to 44 points

Make sure to think about the size of the screen and room as well when planning font sizes. With a smaller screen in a larger space, everything will look smaller than it is. The opposite is true of an oversized screen in a small room. Think Outside the Slide has a great font cheat sheets for a number of different screen sizes.

7. Turn Off Animations

Don’t let all those PowerPoint tricks suck you in. Moving text, zooming words, letters that fly in from the side of the screen – they are all difficult to read. And really distracting.

If you want to use an effect, “Appear” is acceptable. But there’s no need to dazzle the audience with crazy font tricks. All this really does is distract people from what you are really trying to say.

The same mantra that we use with all other design projects applies here as well – KISS or Keep It Simple, Stupid.

8. Plan for Sharing

While many users work with PowerPoint regularly, chances are that you’ll be asked to share your presentation slides for others. This includes posting with tools such as SlideShare, emailing the PowerPoint (or putting it in a drop folder) or sharing via Google Slides.

When it comes to fonts, Google Slides is the most complicating factor because it has a different suite of standard fonts than PC or Mac operating systems. Make sure to test the presentation in this environment if you plan to share and use a Google standard font or make sure to include the font you plan to use in the customization options.

9. Think About the Notes, Too

The part of PowerPoint presentations that is often neglected is the notes section. If you plan to distribute a presentation file to the audience (digitally or via printouts), the font selection for accompanying notes is important.

Use the same typeface as for the main slideshow with related corresponding headers and body and bulleted text. The big difference here is size. Body copy/bulleted information should fall in the range of 9 to 12 points and headers should be 18 to 20 points. This is a comfortable reading size for most documents. (These sizes also help ensure clear printing on standard office machines.)

10. Use Fonts Consistently

You don’t need a huge font library to create great PowerPoint presentations. Having a couple of go-to fonts that you use consistently is enough.

Make sure to use fonts consistently within a document as well. Create a PowerPoint template file so that when you use different levels of bulleting and headers, the sizes, color variations, and fonts change automatically. (Web designers, this is just like using H1 through H6 tags.)

A clear consistent use of fonts makes your presentation about how it looks and how easy (or tough) it may be to read and more about the content therein. (And that’s what it should be about.)

If you don’t feel comfortable making your own PowerPoint presentation template, you can download one to get started. These options might have a more refined look than some of the software defaults (and all of the examples in this article come from these collections).

• 25+ Minimal PowerPoint Templates
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Download and install custom fonts to use with Office

Most applications (such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) include fonts that are automatically installed when you install the software. For example, applications that are created especially for document design projects, such as Microsoft Publisher, often come with quite a few extra fonts that you can use with any other program on your computer.

However, sometimes you may want to install custom fonts that you've created, purchased or downloaded from somewhere else. In this article we'll talk about how to install those fonts so you can use them in Microsoft Office.

Note:  To embed fonts in a Microsoft Office Word document or PowerPoint presentation, see Embedding fonts on the PPTools site .

Locate custom fonts on the Web

In addition to acquiring and using fonts installed with other applications, you can download fonts from the Internet. Some fonts on the Internet are sold commercially, some are distributed as shareware, and some are free. The Microsoft Typography site site provides links to other font foundries (the companies or individuals outside of Microsoft who create and distribute fonts) where you can find additional fonts.

After you find a font that you would like to use with an Office application, you can download it and install it through the operating system that you are currently using on your computer. Because fonts work with the operating system, they are not downloaded to Office directly. You should go through the system's Fonts folder in Windows Control Panel and the font will work with Office automatically. On the Mac you use the Font Book to add the font and then copy it to the Windows Office Compatible folder.

Many third parties outside of Microsoft package their fonts in .zip files to reduce file size and to make downloading faster. If you have downloaded a font that is saved in .zip format double-click the zip file to open it.

Install a custom font you have downloaded

Once you've downloaded the font you want to install you need to install it in the operating system. Once the font is properly installed in the operating system Microsoft Office will be able to see and use it. For detailed instructions select the operating system you're using from the drop-down box below.

• Select your operating system
• Windows 7, 8, 10, or 11

Find the font file that you downloaded, keeping in mind that it may be contained within a .zip file. It's probably located in your downloads folder.

Double-click the font file to open it in the Font Previewer

Close the Font Previewer, and open your Office program. You should now see your new font included on the font list.

Find the font file you downloaded - it likely has a .ttf or .otf extension and it's probably in your downloads folder. Double-click on it.

Note:  If the font file has a .zip extension you need to open that .zip file and open the font file from there.

It will open in the font previewer. Click Install Font . It will open in the Font Book .

Close the Font Book . Your font should now be available to Microsoft Office.

Note:  If you're using Office 2011 for Mac, you may need to drag and drop the font to the Windows Office Compatible collection in the Font Book to make it available to Microsoft Office.

Sharing files that contain non-standard fonts

When you install a custom font, each font will work only with the computer you've installed it on. Custom fonts that you've installed on your computer might not display the same way on a different computer. Text that is formatted in a font that is not installed on a computer will display in Times New Roman or the default font.

Therefore, if you plan to share Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, or Excel files with other people, you'll want to know which fonts are native to the version of Office that the recipient is using. If it isn't native, you may have to embed or distribute the font along with the Word file, PowerPoint presentation, or Excel spreadsheet. For more information about this see Fonts that are installed with Microsoft Office .

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By lyn January 11, 2023

12 Best Fonts for PowerPoint Presentations (2023)

What are the best fonts for PowerPoint presentations? That’s a question we want to answer in this post.

We list a dozen fonts suitable for presentations. We included different font styles to account for the different presentation styles you can create with Microsoft PowerPoint.

Some fonts are included in the application itself. Others are from marketplaces like Creative Market and Envato Elements.

Envato Elements is a subscription service that gives you access to an unlimited number of downloads of over 80,000 design elements for $16.50/month.

You can get started with a 7-day free trial. We wrote a review on Envato Elements if you’d like to learn more about it.

Let’s get into our list for now.

The Best Fonts for PowerPoint Presentations

01. visby cf.

Visby CF is a versatile sans-serif font fit for any PowerPoint presentation.

It’s easy on the eyes when used in lowercase format or lighter font styles.

When you use all uppercase or bold letters, your text becomes more audacious, lending itself to a more noticeable appeal.

This versatility makes this a suitable primary font for any presentation. Use it for headings and paragraph text alike.

The font comes packaged in an OTF file.

Tahoma is a sans-serif font. It was designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft in 1994, after which it was included in the original edition of Windows 95.

It’s been a staple of Microsoft applications like PowerPoint ever since.

The font contains two Windows TrueType fonts in regular and bold weights.

It’s a versatile font perfect for headings and paragraph text as well as personal and professional projects.

03. Caridora

Caridora is a rounded, semi-condensed sans-serif font.

It’s an okay font for text, but it’d truly shine as a heading font, especially for casual or non-corporate presentations.

It comes with two styles in TTF and OTF file formats, meaning four files in total.

04. Palatino Linotype

Palatino Linotype is a modern take on a font by the same name, Palatino. Both the original and digital typefaces were designed by Hermann Zapf.

Hermann designed the original in 1950, after which it became one of the most popular fonts used around the world.

It’s a serif font and a safe option for headings and secondary text in professional presentations.

05. Bergen Sans

Bergen Sans is a big and bold sans-serif font. It’s one of the best fonts for PowerPoint presentations, especially for larger headings meant to grab your viewer’s attention.

This particular font comes packaged as a font family that consists of 6 individual fonts.

Because of this, you can easily use one font for headings and a lighter font from this family for text.

The fonts come in OTF format

Frunch is a bold script font with a vintage flair.

It’d make a great heading font, especially for those in-between slides that only have a simple heading and an accompanying graphic.

The font comes in OTF and TTF file formats and includes 389 glyphs.

07. Addington CF

Addington CF is one of the most elegant serif fonts for PowerPoint presentations.

It’s not too unlike Palatino Linotype, though this font does feature a more vibrant style.

It comes in OTF format and includes 6 font weights plus roman and italic font sets.

Price: Free with Envato Elements.

08. Fonseca

Fonseca is an art deco sans-serif font with a modern twist.

This makes it a suitable choice for headings and subheadings, especially for artistic presentations.

The font is packaged in OTF format with several font styles included. It has 345 glyphs.

09. RNS Camelia

RNS Camelia is a slab serif font. That makes it an incredibly suitable choice for headings right off the bat.

However, it’s also a great text font when used in a lighter font weight.

The font comes in OTF format with 14 styles included.

10. Verdana

Verdana is a classic Microsoft Windows font designed by Mattew Carter. This one, in particular, was one of the first fonts designed with on-screen displays in mind.

It’s a sans-serif font, but a rather plain one.

This makes it most suitable as a text font for professional, and especially corporate, presentations.

Price: Included with PowerPoint.

11. RNS Sanz

RNS Sanz is one of the best sans-serif fonts for PowerPoint presentations.

It’s multipurpose as you can use it as both a heading and text font for PowerPoint presentations.

The font comes in multiple styles and is packaged in OTF and TTF file formats.

Corbel is a rounded sans-serif font that first appeared in Microsoft applications with the release of Windows Vista.

It’s a simple font, but it’s versatile enough to be used as a heading font in professional presentations and a text font in all others.

How to Use Custom Fonts for PowerPoint Presentations

Microsoft PowerPoint Online does not allow you to use custom fonts. If you only have access to this version of PowerPoint, you’ll need to stick to the default fonts it comes with.

Based on our list, this means sticking to fonts that say “included with PowerPoint” in the Price section of each list item.

For the desktop version of PowerPoint , follow these steps to upload a custom font into the application:

• Download a copy of the font you want to add to PowerPoint.
• Custom fonts need to be in TTF (TrueType Font) or OTF (OpenType Font) file formats in order to use them in PowerPoint. If your font came in a ZIP folder, unzip the folder to extract the correct file format.
• Double click this file. This opens a window that contains a preview of the font you downloaded.
• Click the Install button in the window. It’s located toward the top.
• If your font came with additional styles (bold, italic, extra bold, etc.), you may see additional TTF and OTF files, one for each additional style. Go through the same process of double clicking and installing each one if you want to use them in PowerPoint.
• Restart your computer (or PowerPoint, at the very least).

That’s it! The font should now be available for use in PowerPoint.

The process is similar on a Mac.

After Step 2, open Font Book on your Mac. Then, drag and drop any files you want to use in PowerPoint from its original folder over to Font Book.

Embedding Fonts in PowerPoint Presentations

If you want to ensure your PowerPoint presentation features all of the custom fonts you used (instead of the app’s default ones), you need to embed them into your final presentation file.

Otherwise, custom fonts will only appear when you show the presentation on a computer that has the font installed.

Here are the steps for embedding fonts on a PC:

• Click File, then Options.
• Open the Save tab.
• Look for the “Preserve fidelity when sharing this document” setting. It’s located at the bottom.
• Make sure the “Embed fonts in the file” option is selected, then click OK.
• Save/export your presentation as usual.

Follow these steps to embed fonts on a Mac:

• Select Preferences.
• Look for the Output and Sharing section, then click Save.
• Look for the “Font Embedding” setting.
• Make sure the “Embed fonts in the file” option is selected.

How to Choose the Best Fonts for PowerPoint Presentations

PowerPoint presentations are akin to signs, posters and even billboards you see as you drive along the highway.

They’re filled with information but are often paired with visuals designed to grab your attention and complement the words they’re attributed to.

However, a good sign or billboard can grab your attention with either. Each slide in your presentation should do the same.

Yes, the visuals in your presentation do a lot, but don’t discredit the power typography can play when it comes to conveying a message or providing facts.

So, instead of choosing any old font to add to your PowerPoint, choose the best fonts for your presentation instead.

It’s best to choose no more than two fonts that complement each other: one for headings and a second for text.

Your heading font should captivate your viewers at a moment’s glance. It should also look good in larger font sizes.

Visby CF, Tahoma, Caridora, Frunch, Addington, and RNS Camelia are all great options for headings.

They each have different styles, though, so make sure you choose one that complements your presentation’s content as well.

For example, Addington is a bit of a fancier, more elegant font. It likely wouldn’t be suitable for a presentation on skateboarding.

It’s best to choose a simpler font for text.

This is because text in PowerPoint presentations is used to convey more information (and words) than headings.

Stick with sans-serif fonts for text since they’re easier to read.

Tahoma, Palatino Lintoype, Bergen Sans, Fonseca, and RNS Sanz are good choices.

Be sure to grab an Envato Elements subscription if you want more choices. They also have thousands of PowerPoint templates, all of which are free with your subscription.

You can get started with a 7-day free trial.

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• Design Tips

20 Best Fonts for Professional PowerPoint: Adios! You Won’t See Arial and Times New Roman Anymore

Ulfah Alifah

• Published on April 28, 2021

Table of Contents

Have you read our old post about ‘ Font Pairing Tips and Tricks for Dummies ’? If not, we highly recommend you take a quick look at that typography article. Why is it so? Fonts have as big an influence on design manner as visuals.

Beautiful presentation visuals can all be undermined by poorly chosen typefaces. Hence, you must use a font that follows the rest of your design style, the personality, and the right voice you’re trying to convey.

That insight will help you determine the ideal font before creating your presentation design project using these 20 best fonts for Professional PowerPoint. Good luck!

Best fonts for professional PowerPoint

There are four types of fonts to analyze when looking to choose the best fonts for professional PowerPoint. Shortly, we merged Script and Decorative fonts.

Serif fonts

Serif fonts are traditional ones. They are known for their extra tail (or “feet”) at the end of each letter. Popular Serifs are Times New Roman, Century, Bookman, Lucida, Garamond, and more.

Sans Serif fonts

Sans Serif fonts are those without the tail. The word “Sans” is French for without, and Serif refers to the extra tails. They include Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Verdana, Lucida Sans, Tahoma, and Century Gothic.

Script and decorative fonts

These fonts try to follow handwriting and are mostly reserved for special presentations. Here, you will see the 20 best fonts for professional PowerPoint you can use for your presentations.

What are the best fonts for professional PowerPoint? Let’s have a look at some of the most popular ones!

Using the best fonts for professional PowerPoint is favored for obvious reasons.

It is the ideal choice when looking for a universal, readable Sans Serif PowerPoint font.

See also: 20 Best Creative Custom Fonts PowerPoint Design

Helvetica font family is in its neutral, a font that can blend into any style, like that of a chameleon but in the font world. 

If I could summarise Helvetica in one sentence, it would be: “Clarity with complete simplicity.” In presentations, Helvetica is powerful and can add real impact, but it doesn’t take over the limelight.

Next, one of the oldest fonts created in the 16th century in France by Claude Garamond led the whole European typography.

This font family is worth choosing for companies not chasing trends and making the identity look refined and elegant.

Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface created by Paul Renner and published in 1927.

This font is based on geometric shapes, especially the circle, similar in spirit to the Bauhaus design trends of the period.

See also: What Are Sans Serif Fonts? Don’t Get Stuck in the “Serif = Traditional, Sans Serif = Modern” Mindset

Gill Sans was created by British graphic artist and sculptor Eric Gill.

Another Sans Serif font, Gill Sans, gives a friendly and warm look without being too overstressed. Some refer to Gill Sans as ‘the British Helvetica.’

Rockwell font was developed with Monotype Design Studio in 1934, which saw the return to the reputation of slab serif fonts. Rockwell’s strong and friendly characters make this font particularly adaptable.

This font is ready in nine different variations: italics, different weights, and condensed font versions.

Verdana is one of the easy choices of the best fonts for professional PowerPoint. It is a more recent font crafted in 1996 by Mathew Carter for Microsoft, so you know it is optimized for the screen.

Its symbols include wide spaces and counters with tall lower-case letters that increase readability.

In fact, you can use a font like Fira Sans as both your header and body font, with different fonts in the mix to create only an accent font.

While this font is suitable in both normal and bold weights for most of the slide content, we see a nice serif launched as well to balance the single presentation font.

Hermann Zapf created Palatino back in 1949 based on type styles starting from the Italian Renaissance era.

Hermann also intended to keep the font readable on low-quality paper and small-sized prints, including when viewed at a distance, making it the perfect fonts for professional PowerPoint presentation.

Tahoma provides separable characters from each other and looks more like Verdana, albeit tightly spaced for a more formal appearance.

Tahoma fonts arrived with Windows 95 and have since been used in professional PowerPoint presentations for their uniqueness, clarity, and readability.

Georgia is highly appreciated for its beauty and blends thick and thin strokes to give well-spaced Serif characters.

Georgia is the most similar font to Times New Roman, albeit bigger, making it ideal for presentations.

This font was produced with one purpose in mind, and that’s to give clean text without confusion on the screen. It was created particularly for LCD monitors, so you know it’s optimized for any presentation project. 

The font is neat and clean, making it a reasonable choice for any professional PowerPoint presentation that calls for large contrast. Also, its spacing allows for readability at a distance.

The Segoe family of fonts is one of the best fonts for professional PowerPoint presentations. 

Segoe is pretty similar to Verdana and maintains a warm, inviting look, and that’s still spacious and precise on screens.

Century Gothic

Century Gothic is a sans-serif typeface with a geometrical style. Monotype Imaging published it in 1991, created to fight with the ever-famous Futura. Its style is very similar to the rival but with a larger x-height.

Importantly, this font is useful in advertising, such as headlines, display work, and small quantities of text.

We’ve all seen a million and two presentations using conventional fonts like Arial and Times New Roman.

Plus, Lato’s variety of weights is ready – from thin to light to bold, which helps to increase this font’s overall interest.

Roboto is one of the other great fonts for professional PowerPoint presentations. This font is yet another basic sans-serif font that works beyond many industries and types of presentations.

This font style is the perfect font to use for body text. The main body paragraphs are easy to read with this font in professional nuance and well designed.

Montserrat is our favorite font for us here at RRGraph Design.

Besides, this font will let them know what to expect each time you move to a new slide. However, it’s one of the top font selections you can apply for the headings on your professional PowerPoint presentation.

We commonly use Open Sans fonts for professional PowerPoint presentation , especially for body paragraphs due to their legibility.

However, we shouldn’t cut Open Sans like only a paragraph typeface. You can also use it in professional PowerPoint presentations to help your headings stand out sharply.

Libre-Baskerville

Libre-Baskerville is a serif font style with several other fonts and color schemes to create a more traditional look and feel for your slides. 

However, you also can use this font in body paragraphs easily, as it’s clear, legible, and readable.

It has developed in reputation and become something like the “Helvetica of the free fonts.” The family has four new members – Thin, Light, Book, and Regular – added by Fontfabric Type Foundry.

The new weights stay true to the style and grace of Bebas with the familiar clean lines, elegant shapes, a blend of technical straightforwardness, and simple warmth, which make it consistently proper for web, print, commerce, and art.

Are you choosing a font for headings or body text?

The first thing to think about is where you choose a font for headings or body text – does it need to be clearly understandable in longer paragraphs and smaller sizes? Or can you afford to go bigger? Are you looking for a bigger, more impactful slide title?

Whether your font is for the heading or body text will help inform your answer to the next question.

Serif or Sans Serif?

Serif fonts have tiny ticks or ‘wings’ at the end of their lines. Usually, they correlate with strictness, business-like, intellectual content. On the other hand, sans-serif fonts – have no marks on the ends of their lines, and we usually see them as modern, smooth, and clean.

The general sense is that serif fonts are better for print and body text, as the serifs lead the eye from one character to the next, like joined handwriting. Instead, sans serif fonts are better for titles and text displayed on a screen. But these are not complex and fast precepts!

The popular opinion is to pick one of each; possibly titles will be sans serif, and body text will be serif, but it’s up to you. You can determine what feels suitable for your brand. Do you want to appeal to tradition, create an intelligent vibe with a serif font, or want your text to feel fresh, speaking of technology, and progress with a sans serif choice? This leads to your final consideration.

See also: The Only Guide You Need to Download and Install Fonts for Professional PowerPoint

What about custom fonts.

Sometimes what we want is not the ordinary, the comforting, the Arial, and the Times New Roman; sometimes, we want something diverse. This is your opportunity to reach the almost endless world of the best fonts for professional PowerPoint presentations. Here, you can find fonts to fit nearly any reasonable necessity. There will be a custom font for you, from timeless, elegant, crisp, and futuristic to embellished scripts and decorative innovations.

But a word of caution on non-system fonts – custom fonts can be a convincing and attractive component of your presentation design. Still, if misused, they can also be its destruction.

A custom font will only appear in your presentation if played on a device by installing the fonts first. PowerPoint will replace your beautiful and carefully planned custom font with one system default on any other device. This can have destructive outcomes for your presentation design.

If you present your presentation exclusively from the same device, you shouldn’t have a puzzle. Still, suppose many devices or operating systems are available or intend to share your presentation with others to ensure your fonts survive the jump. In that case, it is safer to stay in the system’s default fonts. So, you can be confident now. Your carefully crafted designs will remain as you conceived them, and you can focus on delivering the very best professional PowerPoint presentation.

See also: How to Embed Fonts in PowerPoint into Various Platforms

3 tools to help you choose better presentation fonts.

We’ve noted the three helpful tools mention in the video here to help you choose more effective typefaces for your next professional PowerPoint presentation.

Then, we’ve used ‘Fonts in Use many times; it is a handy tool for selecting fonts for any presentation design project.

Fonts in the Wild

Fonts in use.

Lastly, we’ve done the game with the 20 best fonts for professional PowerPoint. That every single person who has ever designed an Apple Keynote or Microsoft PowerPoint™ presentation should have it in their arsenal. Please go out and enjoy them.

See also: Font Pairing Tips and Tricks for Dummies

Ready to create your next presentation.

Furthermore, whether you use Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote , each of these presentation fonts can bring the best out of your presentation projects.

Let’s visit RRSlide to download free PowerPoint presentation templates  with many categories. But wait, don’t go anywhere and stay here with our Blog to keep up-to-date on all the best pitch deck template collections and design advice from our PowerPoint experts yet to come!

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Best PowerPoint Fonts To Make Your Presentations StandOut

The foremost purpose of your presentation is to communicate your thinking to your audience effectively. To keep the audience engaged in your presentation, believe it or not, the Presentation font selection also plays a significant role. The fonts create the tone and atmosphere of the presentation. PowerPoint Fonts have the power to enhance or dampen your communication considerably.  Fonts are like non-verbal expressions of written words. You can make your words look bold and confident or shaky just by the choice of your fonts in presentations . You can actually produce deep and powerful impressions using presentation fonts .

In a nutshell, you don’t want your audience to be distracted from the topic just because of the font selection. Right? So what should you be taking care of in font selection while designing your next winning presentation ? Let’s learn more about professional presentation fonts for winning over your audience: 

Points To Avoid While Choosing Presentation Fonts:

Overuse of certain presentation fonts.

Initially created for The Times newspaper in 1929, Times New Roman became the new default font for many MS Office Apps, and it is overused since then. Just like Times New Roman, Arial has been a default font for Windows for many years; this reason is enough to justify why Arial is one of the most boring fonts. We are tired of seeing these presentation fonts almost everywhere. You don’t only have to choose the font that fits your business and the presentation topic, but also need to make sure that you avoid all of the common options. Our attention span is decreasing very fast; we get bored very fast. If your content is not attention-grabbing, you can’t engage your audience. Move away from the defaults; use different cool presentation fonts , there is so much more out there.

Use Of Cool Fancy Fonts

Although it might look fancy to look at cool presentation fonts , they considerably reduce the readability of your content. Handwriting-style fonts such as Mistral and Viner Hand can be fun to use; however,  they can make your slides look unprofessional. Similarly, some best fonts for a presentation such as Comic Sans are more appropriate for content prepared for children rather than for professional presentations . Your audience in the back row relies on the slides to help them understand what you’re talking about, the corporate presentations are why you should avoid tiny presentation fonts like Brush Script or Bradly Hand. Most of us should try to stick to the basics when it comes to font styles. Make sure you keep it simple and formal!

Use Of Obvious & Boring Fonts

Helvetica Neue typeface was proudly used by widely-known companies such as Apple, Nasa, and BMW because it worked for them. The problem is that Helvetica is a thin-weight font, and when shown in smaller point sizes, its curves break up. Kerning is the space between two letters based on their shape. Too little space makes the professional presentation fonts unreadable because the letters are smushed together.  Unfortunately, Helvetica uses kerning to distort words, making the text difficult to read by randomizing the spaces between characters. Using this professional presentation font in your presentation won’t bring any extra value.

Misuse Of Shadow

Many people use shadows on their text to make it stand out. However, when you use shadows, the text looks blurry and dirty. It’s always better to avoid shadow, especially for PowerPoint presentations .  But if you are a fan of text-shadow and still want to use a drop shadow on text, only use it on the header and never in the body. Also, consider using a dark background with white bold text for better visuals.

What are the best fonts for a presentation?

Use Best PowerPoint Fonts – Verdana and Georgia

Designers at Microsoft deliberately crafted Verdana for use on computer screens. This is considered one of the cool presentation fonts . The letters are widely spaced, and lowercase letters are tall, making this font extremely readable. Verdana makes it a very safe bet when you know that your presentation will appear on different devices. It is also not overused making it the best font for a presentation to make the content look appealing and readable To effectively showcase numbers in the PowerPoint presentation , Georgia is a great serif option offering lowercase numbers, which are also a Windows standard font. Therefore this is amongst the best presentation fonts when showcasing numbers.

Make Your Presentation Fonts Readable

Creating your presentation using some cool presentation fonts will make your audience focus on the design rather than the message that you want to deliver. Also, it would reduce the readability of your content. Therefore choose professional fonts that allow your readers to focus on the message .  It would help if you effectively format your text on the slides so that they don’t look too busy. The use of proper line spacing and margins can increase the readability of the content . Effective use of bullet points and indentation can make your slides look neat.

Stick To Grayscale For Fonts In Presentation

Studies have shown that different colors have different impacts on the mind and evoke mixed feelings in many people. It would be best if you keep that in mind while creating a presentation since you want to avoid colors that might negatively impact the message you are delivering. Pro Tip:  It is always safe to use grayscale in your presentation as they look professional.

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Blog / Presentation Design / The 10 best presentation fonts to transform your next PowerPoint.

The 10 best presentation fonts to transform your next PowerPoint.

Welcome to our new presentation font dating show: What’s your type? Starting with ten eligible font choices, you’ll get to know your future font intimately. Based on purpose and personality, you’ll whittle the list down before making your final decision and running off into the sunset with the font of your dreams. 

With over 600,000 fonts on  What Font Is  alone, the term choice paralysis doesn’t quite cover the sweat-inducing panic that accompanies picking just one font for your PowerPoint presentation. How do you even begin to narrow them down and find the best font for your needs? Do you choose based on the name you like most? Perhaps you simply keep returning to your ex font, even though you two clearly have communication issues? Or maybe you just close your eyes and see which your mouse lands on?

Why isn’t there a tinder for fonts?

You obviously can’t be trusted to make this decision on your own. Which is why we’ve done the legwork for you, rounding up ten beautiful, brilliant, and personality-packed font choices for you to choose from.

Enough of the build up.

10 best fonts for presentations

Shall we meet them.

Designed by Matthew Carter, Tahoma is one of Microsoft’s most popular sans serif typefaces.

Another of Matthew Carter’s designs, Verdana is a prime example of a font created specifically for the screen.

Impact gets about a bit. Named as one of the  core fonts for the web , this font has been seen by just about everyone.

Georgia is a nineties gal. Designed for screen, Georgia’s weight fluctuates by a whole pixel, which is greater than traditional print typography.

5. Palatino

Palatino was originally designed for headings and is legible even on the inferior paper of the post-World War II period.

6. Proxima Nova

Proxima Nova is the go-to font for just about anything. Oh, it’s flexible alright.

7. ITC Souvenir

This personable little number gets along with loads of other fonts, just ask Futura and Roboto.

8. Montserrat

A Buenos Aires export, old posters and signs in the artist’s hometown inspired the creation of this 30-year old stunner.

Initially created by Matt McInerney as a single-weight font, but my, my, has Raleway come a long way since then.

Lato was originally betrothed to a large corporate client, but they decided to go in another direction, so now it’s back on the public market, and looking for Mr Right.

The best font for your PowerPoint presentation is somewhere in this selection, just waiting for you to choose it. How does that feel? 

Well, I’m excited. Let’s get cut-throat and start removing the fonts that just aren’t right for you.

Round one: Finding a presentation font with purpose

Fonts are much more than a pretty (type)face to look good sitting on your PowerPoint slide. They have strengths and weaknesses, just like any of us. In order to choose your perfect font, you first need to decide which one fits your purpose. All relationships are chosen based on practicalities, right?

Do you want a simple life, or something a little extra?

Understanding your ultimate goal isn’t just important when it comes to  writing your story . The final deliverable, audience, and even the room layout all need to be taken into account when choosing your font. After all, if they can’t read your message, what’s the likelihood they’re going to remember it?

There are two main font categories for you to decide between: serifs and sans serifs. There are others, such as script and stencil, but we’re trying to keep this simple. Both serifs and sans serifs have their own benefits and specified use cases, making it easy to find the right font category for your need. Let’s start with serifs.

Could a sophisticated serif be the best font for your presentation?

Serifs are the little extra flourishes that sit at the ends of the larger strokes. They likely came about because the Romans would first paint the outlines onto stone before carving, and the paint brushes would create flares at the ends. Serif fonts more closely represent handwriting and, therefore, are universally acknowledged to be easier to read in print. The serifs create joins between letters, similar to how we’re taught to write in school.

Traditionalists will tell you that serif fonts should only be used for print, but we say that’s nonsense. In fact, serifs have made a  huge comeback , have taken over the web, and are in some damn trendy presentations.

We don’t recommend using serif fonts for body copy, as they aren’t always the clearest, but for titles, or as a supporting font, they can work nicely to liven up your slides, while delivering that touch of class some of you might be looking for. 

If you strip your slides right back to just powerful key statements, you want to draw the eye to the title, or your PowerPoint is destined to be printed, congratulations, you’ve just narrowed down your choices.

Our sassy serifs are:

ITC Souvenir

Certain about serifs? Feel free to  jump to the next section .

Or is a simple sans serif the best font for your presentation?

If you want to keep your options open, let’s bring in our sans serif sensations.

Are you looking for something versatile, sleek, and modern for your presentation font? Look no further than our sans serifs. As digital has taken over from print, so too have sans serifs. These font families are considered better for online and screen formats. This is because their simplified forms translate well across different screen resolutions. 

But don’t be too quick to jump to a sans, just because your presentation is destined for the screen only. Sure, if you’re going to pack the slides with copy, a sans serif may be your only choice. However, if you want our honest opinion, your best move here is to shift most of that text into your speaker notes. But that’s a lesson for another time. 

If you can’t be sure about the technical specifications of the kit you’ll be presenting on, you don’t know how big the room will be, or you might want to reuse your deck for a variety of purposes, you won’t go too far wrong with a sans serif font for your presentation.

If you want to play it safe with a sans, your remaining font choices are:

Proxima Nova

You may think you have your heart set on a typographical temptress now, but we’re only halfway through the round. There’s much more to presentation purpose than how much copy is on the slide.

Know your presentation font limits

Have you ever spent days crafting a beautiful presentation, just to stand up on the day in front of a nauseating hurricane of copy calamity?

Nobody wants their font to make a scene in front of a crowd so, if your presentation is ever going to be viewed, presented or edited on a machine that isn’t yours, you need to take the innate availability of your font into account. 

Why use system fonts in your presentation?

If you just want an easy life, to be able to take your chosen font anywhere and have them behave appropriately, you’re going to want to stick with a system font. Choosing a system font means it doesn’t matter what machine you, or anyone else, opens your presentation on, it will always look exactly how you meant it to. There’s certainly a place for custom fonts in presentations, but you have to know exactly where that presentation is going, and have the foresight to install the font on every machine that could open it. 

If you want to stay safe with a system, but keep it sassy with a serif, you’ve just narrowed your choices to:

If you’re the type of person that doesn’t like to take any risks, you’re going to want to go for a sans serif system font:

Look at that. We’re getting closer to your perfect match.

Settled on system? Now would be a great time to  jump to round two . Don’t even let your heart be tempted away by those exotic custom fonts.

Custom fonts to make your presentation stand out

We all want to stand out from the crowd, especially if you happen to be just one presentation in a long line your audience is seeing that day. One way to stick out from the onslaught of Arial is to use a custom font. When we say custom, we don’t necessarily mean you have to pay a typographer to create one just for you. But you could.

No, if you use a custom font, you just open your presentation possibilities up to the whole world of fonts, beyond what can be found on all machines, as standard. 

If you have complete control over everywhere your presentation lands, and can install your font in all these locations, you have the freedom to get a little more creative with your copy.

Want to go custom, but stay classy? Your serif font is:

Boom! Decision made. However, you may still want to  jump to part two to take the personality test, before you put a ring on it.

Prioritising versatility, but happy to be vigilant? Your sans choices are:

By now, I know you have a favourite. Before we finally get to hear from our fonts, let’s make sure you have all the information you need to get your chosen one to the finish line.

How to install custom fonts in PowerPoint

Start by downloading the font. The font you choose will determine which online location you need to visit to source it. Some reliable sites are  Google Fonts ,  Font Squirrel ,  Da Font , and  Font Fabric . 

Installing your fonts on Windows

Find the font file that you downloaded. It’s probably in a zip file and located in your downloads folder.

Double-click  the font file and it will open in the Font Previewer.

Click Install  at the top left.

Installing your font on Mac

Find the font file you downloaded. It likely has a .ttf or .otf extension and it’s probably in your downloads folder.  Double-click  on it.

NOTE: If the font file has a .zip extension you need to open that .zip file and open the font file from there.

It will open in the Font Previewer.  Click Install Font  to open in Font Book.

In Font Book, drag and drop the font to Windows Office Compatible to make it available to Microsoft Office.

After you’ve installed the font, whether on Mac or PC, you need to restart PowerPoint for it to appear in your font list, ready to use.

Round two: How to avoid a personality clash

You’ve used your noggin and picked some practical choices. Now it’s time to bring in the heart. 

The font you use for your PowerPoint presentation says so much more than the copy it’s used for. Fonts convey emotion, they have personalities and, when used right, they help to visually tell your brand story. After all, you wouldn’t write a formal tender document in Comic Sans, would you?

No, you’d choose something that communicates respect and integrity, such as Bodoni or Optima.

But these guys are just gatecrashers. Back to the main event.

Let’s hand over to  our  fonts, so you can get to know them a little better.

First up, our reliable system fonts.

“I’m pretty neutral. The Switzerland of fonts. My personality may not be wacky enough for some, but I’m always up to have some good, clean fun.

I go with anything, complementing whatever design style you’ve chosen, rather than trying to stamp my personality all over it.

Some call me boring, I like to think I’m agreeable. After all, is your presentation really about me?”

“I’m a modern font with an air of innocence. Clean cut, yet retaining just enough personality to liven up your presentation, I will add a dash of character without stealing the show.

I’ve been described as “cheap”, but I prefer to think of myself as simple. I stand back to let your message shine through.”

“Want to make a statement? I’m the font for you. 

My popularity hasn’t made me any less  impactful .

I may be heavy and condensed in style, but I look great in all caps and am effortless to read.  

Big, bold, and powerful; when you’re with me, no one in the room will be able to take their eyes off you.”

“I may be traditional, but traditions stick around for a reason. I’m sophisticated, certain, confident and reliable. Yes, I prefer to err on the side of practicality, over flamboyance, but if you’re looking for someone to take to a formal occasion, I’m the font for you. After all, people often describe me as looking “expensive”.

With such high contrast between my weights, ample letter spacing and clever design, your message will come across, loud and clear.

Want to put some power behind your presentations? I don’t mean to brag, but my bold is significantly more bold than your average. 

To put it simply: I’m a classic.”

“Pfft. A classic? A relic, you mean. Who wants classic, when you can have modern classic?

I’m popular among professionals, as my sharp edges add a dash of character, without getting too crazy. 

Originally designed for headings, I can certainly stand out from a crowd, but my open counters and carefully-weighted strokes mean I also look great as body copy.”

Phew, things are certainly heating up around here. Before you make your final choice, let’s not forget about our custom contestants.

“Now, now, please don’t be intimidated by my beauty. 

I may be stunning, but I’m so much more. I have so many different weights, I might just be the most versatile font around. You can take me to any occasion, and I will adapt.

As a premium find, I don’t come cheap, but if you have a subscription to Adobe, you can get me through  Adobe Fonts , at no extra cost. Consider this your lucky day.” 

“I am so in right now. By choosing me you will instantly freshen up your slides and add relevance to your designs.

I combine the traditional elegance of a serif with a so-hip-it-hurts retro 90s vibe. I’m curvy in all the right places and will catapult your presentation into the here and now, without losing the credibility that comes with a classic serif.”

I’m a reaaaaal solid font. A hipster classic.

If you want a font that complements your check shirt, I’m your guy.” 

“What do you need to know about me? Well, I’m thicc. 

If you’re looking for something chunky and bold, look no further. 

Oh, you’re not? Wait, please don’t go.

I can be sleek and thin for your text pull outs, too.

Or just a regular type for body copy.

I’m diverse and eager to please. Just let me know what you need, and I’ll find a solution for you.”

“You can’t judge a book by its cover, and you can’t presume to know a font on first glance.

To the untrained eye, I might look like any other sans serif font, but just get to know me and you’ll see my originality shine through.”

And that’s everyone. Now that you’ve met our fonts, all that’s left for us to do is ask the big question…

What’s your type?

You have everything you need to make a smart decision about the best font for your PowerPoint presentation, but your adventure together is only just beginning.

Here are some more tips to get the most out of your new beau.

Perhaps one font isn’t enough?

There are many reasons that you might want to use more than one font in a presentation, however, ain’t nobody got time to pick a pair through trial and error. That’s why you come to us for our sweet presentation design services , right?

Usually, a font with a big personality paired with a more conservative font works well. Pairing a serif with a sans serif can create a nice contrast, but remember to use the sans serif for heavy body copy, as you want it to be legible. You can have a little more fun with your header type, as this tends to be larger, with more space to breathe.

Avoid pairing types that are too similar. If they aren’t distinguishable from each other it can look like you just made a mistake.

If you found it hard to decide which font to choose earlier, pairing two fonts is your chance to have your cake and eat it too. 

Some examples of good couples are:

ITC Souvenir works really well with Roboto and Futura. Roboto and Futura are classic fonts, but they don’t come native to Microsoft Office, so they will need downloading and installing.

Alternatively, our curvaceous ITC Souvenir sits pretty as a picture next to a simple font, like Proxima Nova.

Raleway works with Playfair Display, a beautiful serif font that’s available free from Google Fonts.

Montserrat, which was designed specifically for use online, works perfectly with an old-school classic, like Courier New. The light, modern feel of Montserrat contrasts beautifully with the retro, typewriter vibe of Courier New.

Or you could pair Impact with Tahoma, or even Lato, for a perfect presentation font combo.

If you’re unsure, play it safe. Choose a typeface with lots of weight variations (like Open Sans below), and pair fonts from the same family. After all, they were created to work together. Just make sure there’s enough contrast to make the two types distinguishable.

Finally, don’t go crazy with your number of fonts. You can be a little greedy and get away with it, but at some point, they’re all just going to start fighting one another for your affections. As a general rule for presentations, there should be no more than three or four variations in type, weight or effect. That means you can usually get away with two different typefaces. You can then bold, italicise or change the weight for the remaining variations.

How do my fonts look to other people?

We know what’s really important to you. It’s not whether you like your font choice, not really. You care that your message is communicated clearly and effectively to your audience, and your use of type plays a part in this. Here are a few tricks you can use to make sure the message you’re sending out into the world is the right one.

Be bold to stand out

Use italics to  stress  a point or to indicate a publication, such as;  How to choose the best font for your PowerPoint presentation .

A lot of people like to use  bold  to make their key information stand out. But be careful. If you embolden too many things, what’s important gets lost in a sea of bold.

We don’t see a lot of underlines these days, do we? This is something you can use to your advantage. If you have a word or phrase that really needs some bite, throw a lone underline in there for maximum impact. 

Get in line

It is really important to be consistent with your alignment choice. If your alignment jumps from left to right, to centre, back to right, the likelihood is your audience aren’t following. It makes it difficult for them to know where their eye should go, and it can make them feel pretty seasick. 

Left-aligned text is the easiest to read. In  the West , this is the most commonly-used alignment, as we read left to right. It also creates a clean left edge for our eyes to return back to, once we reach the end of the previous line. It’s like a typewriter, always returning to the same point.

Right-aligned text is usually used for decoration, or to accompany a logo. It’s not very easy to read when in large blocks, because your eyes have to do summersaults to find the beginning of the line again.

Centred text works for small snippets of text, such as posters and book covers. Like with right alignment, your eyes will struggle to follow from line to line, if it’s any more than a few sentences.

Justified text is generally acknowledged as a sure-fire way to create order. However, it can be difficult to get right. Justified text makes the words fit a pre-determined line length, by changing the distance between each word. This means each line has a sharp, consistent edge, but can create big white spaces between words called ‘rivers. Justified text can be particularly difficult for people with dyslexia to read, as the ‘rivers’ distract from the actual text.

Optimise your copy

The optimum line length for presentation copy is 50 characters. This allows the eye to keep track of where the next line starts, so the jump back is seamless.

One of the biggest peeves when it comes to working with typography in presentations is untidy sentence endings. We’re not talking about ending with a preposition, it’s only really dull people that care about that. We’re referring to how a body of text is shaped.

Avoid raggedy paragraph structures, which cause your, otherwise beautiful, design to look untidy and unfinished.

If you’re using left-aligned text, look out for any big gaps or words that hang off the end of the line. Try using a soft return to move them around, as this creates less space between lines than a hard return and notifies the brain that you’re still within the same paragraph.

The lonely hearts club

This is all great advice, until you add in the complication of widows and orphans.

A widow is a lonely word with a line all to itself. You can fix this with that soft return trick, knocking a word or two down from the line above. Your widow won’t be so lonely anymore.

An orphan is when that single word, or a single line, causes you to have to start a new column, or a new slide entirely. Again, either editing your copy or adjusting the structure of the whole paragraph will fix this.

Try to strike a balance between the perfect paragraph shape, and removing your widows and orphans. If you have to make the call, it’s better to have a ragged line than a widow.

Not enough information for you?

As you can see, when working to plan your idyllic future with your new partner in presentations, there’s quite a lot to get your head around. For more tips on creating beautiful slides, check out our  presentation design cheat sheet , explore more system font choices with our  comprehensive overview of what’s available , or get in touch to set up your very own, exclusive episode of  What’s your type?

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20 Most Popular & Professional Presentation Fonts to Use in 2023

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Presentations are important business communication tools or materials that marketers and professionals use to share improtant business ideas, progress reports, information, facts, or figures with a group of people.

Although there is always a presenter available to present the information and coordinate discussion among the audience. The majority of the time during presentations, the audience also read through the presentation slides which makes it imperative that you use the right fonts for presentations.

Fonts play a crucial role in the readability of your presentation slides. Beyond this, they also set the tone of the message and effectively convey the message of the presentation to increase its overall success .

Hence, you must choose the right PowerPoint fonts for your Powerpoint presentations. In this article, we have identified the 20 best and most popular presentation fonts to use to create professional presentations this 2023.

Keep reading!

Brief Overview of the Best PowerPoint Presentation fonts

Presentation fonts play a significant role in the way the core messages in the presentation are conveyed and understood by the audience. This is why you need to be intentional about the type of fonts you choose for your presentations.

The four main types of fonts that you most certainly choose from include the following: Serif font, Sans serif font, script font, and decorative font.

1. Serif Fonts: These are classic fonts designed by William Caslon in 1734 and have been around since then. This font is known for having decorative flicks or an extra tail at the end of each letter.

Serif fonts add a sense of timelessness and tradition to a brand and are popular among law, finance, journalism, and jewelry-making businesses among others. Popular Serifs include Times New Roman, Garamond, Century, Bodini, Lucida, Bookman, and many more.

2. Sans Serif Fonts: These are modern, sharp, and stylish fonts without the extra tails at the end of the letters. They are well known for their clarity and legibility and make the perfect choice for brands looking to appear futuristic.

Popularly used in technology, gaming, consulting, fashion, automobile, and manufacturing industries. Popular sans serif fonts include Arial, Calibri, Helvetica , Tahoma, Open sans, Futura, Lucida Sans, and many others.

3. Script fonts: Script or Cursive fonts are characterized by curvy, stylish typography element that makes them look similar to handwriting.

Depending on the type of script font you use and what you are using it for, some can be highly decorative and feminine while others can look more plain and retro. Some of the popular script fonts include Dancing Script, Lobster, Pacifico, Allura, Parisienne, and many more.

4. Decorative Fonts : Slightly similar to the Script fonts, Decorative fonts are decorative versions of Serif, Sans Serif, Script, and other font types that are mostly used to capture attention and create unique designs. Some of the popular decorative fonts are Cooper Black, Abril Fatface, Gilroy, Bourton font, and many more.

7 Tips to Consider When Choosing the Best Fonts for Your Presentation

Your choice of fonts for your presentation determines its success which is why you need to be very intentional and well-informed about the different types of fonts available and how they all impact your presentation’s success.

To choose the best fonts that increase your presentation readability, legibility, and easy comprehension of your message, we have identified 5 key tips you should consider when choosing the best fonts for your presentations. They include:

1. Choose a simple font

The general idea of choosing a professional font for your presentation is to aid readability and get them to stick with you. Using complicated (hard-to-read) fonts like most scripts and decorative fonts will make your presentation design look chaotic, making it hard for your audience to read what’s on your slides.

However, simple and easy-to-read fonts like serif and san serif fonts, contribute to the overall aesthetics of the design and encourage readers to pay attention to you. Check out the perfect presentation design ideas for inspiration.

2. Prioritize a Sans Serif font over a Serif font

Although we have earlier stated that you should Sans serif and serif fonts over the script and decorative fonts. However, if you are faced with choosing between a San Serif font and a Serif font, you should choose a sans serif font over a serif.

This is solely because the sans serif typeface is much easier to read on-screen compared with the serif font style that has a tail at the end of the letters. Using a modern sans serif font can enhance legibility, readability, and audience attention .

3. Avoid all caps fonts

Although several findings have reported that using capital letters in writing conveys a feeling of power, the audience may perceive this as you shouting at them. In addition to this, using all-caps fonts can also be difficult to read, especially in a block of text.

4. Choose a font that looks good in big and small sizes

The general rule for choosing font sizes in your PowerPoint presentation is not to go below 24 points for the title and 14 – 16 points for the text. To increase readability, keep in mind to choose a font that looks good when thin or thick to aid clarity and quality irrespective of the size even when scaled from 120 points down to 12 points.

5. Choose a different font for your titles and headings

For better readability, consider using different fonts for your title, heading, and subheading fonts to create better emphasis and visual hierarchy. However, keep in mind to not have more than four (4) fonts in your presentation to create a cohesive and visually organized design. The fonts should also be bold and have a bigger font size.

6. Choose complementary fonts

Presentations have to be visually appealing with all design elements well coordinated. If you looking to create balance and coherence in your design, consider using fonts that complement each other to make the design stand out . You must also ensure that this font stands on its own but look good when used together.

7. Choose the right colors and contrast for your font

Colors evoke power and can significantly impact how the font appears in your presentation. Remember that the whole idea of choosing the right fonts is to aid readability and engage your audience. Choosing the right colors and aiming for a clear contrast ensuring that the colors don’t clash. Check out the finest guide for how to create an attractive presentation design .

20 Most Popular and Professional Fonts for Presentations in 2023

Here are the best 20 professional fonts to use for your presentations in 2023.

Presentation Font #1: Verdana

Verdana is highly recognized as one of the best fonts for PowerPoint for its optimization for digital display and its easy compatibility with almost all Windows and Mac computers. Interestingly, Verdana is a recent font created by Mathew Carter in 1996 for Microsoft which further shows you should choose it for your presentation.

Verdana’s best features include its wide spaces with tall lowercase letters and counters making it an excellent choice for body text, which aids readability.

Presentation Font #2: Tahoma

Tahoma is one of the most unique, custom fonts developed in 1995 and has grown in popularity among presentation designers. Although it looks similar to Verdana, Tahoma is more tightly spaced and formal than Verdana. An exciting feature of Tahoma is that it’s easy to distinguish each letter from another.

For example, the lowercase letter “i” is different from the uppercase “I”, making it easy to eliminate errors in presentations. Tahoma is particularly a good choice for presentations due to its readability and clear letters.

Presentation Font #3: Calibri

Calibri is a popular sans-serif font that has made it to the list for its simple, clear and subtly rounded edges. Although it has been replaced in Microsoft Office 2007 with Arial, it is still the ideal choice Sans Serif PowerPoint font for its universal readability

Presentation Font #4: Georgia

Like Verdana, Georgia is also one of the recent fonts designed by Matthew Carter in 1996. As a popular modern serif font, Georgia features thick and thin strokes with tall lowercase letters giving a classic look which makes it an excellent choice for your professional presentations.

Interestingly, Georgia is known to be a good alternative to Times New Roman only that it’s slightly larger.

Presentation Font #5: Palatino

The Palatino is one of the popular presentation fonts designed by Hermann Zapf in 1949 originating from the Italian Renaissance.

Influenced by his calligraphic works, the Palatino font was created primarily for advertising, print media headings, and low-quality paper and small-sized prints. Palatino’s solid and wide structure greatly enhances readability especially when read or view from afar, making it an excellent choice for your PowerPoint presentations.

Presentation Font #6: Corbel

As a font designed with the sole aim of providing clean text without clutter on the screen, the Corbel font makes an excellent presentation font to consider in 2023. Corbel is a humanist simple sans serif font released in 2005 for Microsoft’s clear-type rendering and specifically designed for LCD monitors.

Its clean and clear characters with wide spacing don’t clutter the screen and make a great choice for presentations that calls for massive contrast. Although it is slightly similar to Candara fonts, Corbel’s lowercase I’s and ‘J’s have box dots instead of circles on Candara making them more assertive.

Presentation Font #7: Gill Sans

Gill Sans is a classic presentation font that gives a warm and friendly appeal to PowerPoint presentations like Helvetica. If you are looking for a font that best pairs with a simple font like Times New Roman, there’s none better than Gill Sans font.

An interesting feature of Gill Sans font is its multiple options and compatibility with various other fonts. It also contains legible prints that make it easy for your audience to read the presentation from a distance.

Presentation Font #8: Garamond

Garamond font was created in the 1500s by Claude Garamond, making it one of the oldest fonts. Rather than being a font itself, Garamond is a style of font that offers users many unique options such as Adobe Garamond, Monotype Garamond, and Garamond ITC.

Its commanding and well-structured characters provide a great contrast between the title and text, making them a perfect choice for body text.

Presentation Font #9: Futura

Futura is a popular go-to font for many brand logo designs. Created in 1927, Futura’s variants and versatility make it a popular don’t choice for PowerPoint presentations.

This typeface projects the feeling of adaptability and forwardness with a touch of modernity making it an ideal choice for headline and body text.

Presentation Font #10: Lato

Lato is a basic sans-serif font with a modern appeal and normal and bold weights that help offset the light in different designs and headings.

It is a versatile font with nine weights ranging from hairline and thin to light to bold, making it a perfect choice for any presentation. Lato works well as a sliding header or the main header and its ability to convey professionalism makes it a good choice for your pitch decks.

Presentation Font #11: Roboto

The Roboto typeface is a basic sans-serif font that is modern, easily recognizable, and approachable. It features professional, easy-to-read, and well-designed characters that you can use across different presentations. Roboto is most appropriate for body texts and pairs easily with other fonts.

Presentation Font #12: Century Gothic

Century Gothic is a sans serif typeface with a geometric style released by Monotype Imaging in 1991.

It was designed solely to compete with the Futura font and has a similar style to Futura but a larger x-height. It is mostly used in advertising, displays work, and is a great choice for headlines, and small quantities of text.

Presentation Font #13: Segoe

The Segoe font is Microsoft’s choice for its logo and other marketing materials since the days of Windows Vista.

Though it shares similarities with Verdana, its warm, inviting looks with wider space and heavier letters make this family of fonts a perfect choice for your presentation headers.

Presentation Font #14: Montserrat

Montserrat is a new geometric sans serif typeface designed by Julieta Ulanovsky, an Argentine graphic designer in 2011. Inspired by posters, and signed and painted windows from the first half of the twentieth century in the historic Montserrat neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Montserrat is one of the popular font choices that fit well in headings and PowerPoint slides.

Its bold characters help your slide titles and headers to stand out to your audience, showing the audience what to expect each time you move to a new slide.

Presentation Font #15: Open Sans

Open Sans is a sans serif typeface designed in 2010 by Steve Matteson and is a commonly used font for body paragraphs due to its legibility. It was designed with open forms, neutral but friendly appearance. As a basic sans serif font, Open sans provides a perfect way to visualize the larger pieces of text you might include on a slide.

It has excellent legible characteristics in its letterforms and was optimized for print, web, and mobile interfaces.

Presentation Font #16: Abril Fatface

Abril Fatface is a slab serif font that has a bolder appearance that helps to grab the attention of the audience. It is a great font for creating eye-catching headlines on your presentation slides but keeps in mind that it should only be used with short headings or pieces of text.

A bold font like Abril Fatface can be hard to read if used in paragraphs or longer sentences. It pairs nicely with fonts like Helvetica or Verdana. A good alternative for this slab serif font alternative is Rockwell or a bold Trocchi.

Presentation Font #17: Helvetica

Helvetica is a widely used classic sans serif font that has retained its spot as a popular people’s choice for a good reason.

Developed by Swiss typeface designers, Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann in 1957, Helvetica is an excellent font choice to use for headers and titles in live presentations where some of the audience might be far away from the front row (viewing from a distance.

To effectively communicate and create presentations that stand out, ensure that you use Helvetica as a bold text on headings and titles.

Presentation Font #18: League Spartan

League Spartan is a new simple, modern, and geometric sans serif font with a bold, uniform, and minimalistic nature that makes it a good font choice for headings and titles. League Spartan works best as a header in infographics or cartoon-style presentations with the sole purpose of converting difficult or complex information into easy-to-remember points.

On a general note, League Spartan’s simplicity makes it a great choice for infographics. However, keep in mind that using League Spartan in bold settings can make paragraphs and letter bodies heavy. So stick to the normal font when using it.

Presentation Font #19: Playfair Display

Playfair Display is an open-source chic and highly fashionable serif font designed by a Danish designer, Claus Eggers Sørensen who developed it off of Baskerville font.

It has a strong box with the majority of its character placed in between the baseline and X-height. Playfair Display has high contrast between its thick and thin lines making it an ideal font choice for logos, strong titles, and headers.

Presentation Font #20: Raleway

Raleway is an elegant sans serif typeface designed by Matt McInerney in a single thin weight with a display face that features both old style and lining numerals.

However, due to popular demand, it was given a heaver and italicized version for users. While the bold and light versions of Raleway have been designed to be very versatile, its italicized version help increases legibility with the off-centered markings.

Raleway font can be used anywhere from bold headers to lighter body texts in a presentation. Keep in mind that when written in bold and capitalized text, it makes a good fit for titles and header font that can easily capture the audience’s attention.

Presentation fonts like colors do the magic trick on the visual appeal of presentations. Without the right choice of fonts, your presentation may fall apart and fail to engage your audience during presentations.

Although there are no hard rules when it comes to choosing the right fonts for presentations, however, we have identified the top 20 most popular and professional fonts to choose from. Nonetheless, take your time researching more fonts that you can use beyond the ones we have identified above.

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Best Fonts for Presentations in 2023

Even if you’re not a graphic design geek, you can probably recognize and name a few of the world’s most famous fonts. Times New Roman, for example, will be familiar to anyone who used Microsoft Word in the early 2000s. The playful rounded letters of Comic Sans have been much maligned on the internet, while the spindly lines of Papyrus have been used to great effect in every childhood project about Ancient Egypt. 

Helvetica is familiar from its use by a wide range of brands, including American Apparel and Jeep as well as being used extensively on Apple software. Arial is the default font of Google Slides and Docs. And while most people probably don’t know it by name, the font Gotham has been much used in politics and advertising after its use in branding by the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. 

This is all to say that even though people may not think of themselves as font enthusiasts, your presentation font choice absolutely matters. The fonts you use are a subtle but powerful visual cue that can be used to complement your presentation and effectively convey your message. While a unique and fun typeface can help you grab your audience’s attention, a more familiar font can convey authority and expertise. 

In the increasingly visual and video-based culture of 2023, where  TikTok  is the world’s  most downloaded app , and Instagram has more monthly users than Twitter, getting your slides’ appearance right is just as essential as perfecting your script. So, which font choices can  help your presentation hit the mark ? Here are the best fonts for presentations in 2023, as well as the ones to avoid. 

But first, a note of serif and sans serif

Serif and sans-serif fonts are the two main categories you’ll need to consider when  designing your presentation template . Despite the fancy names, the difference between the two is very simple.

Serifs  are the elegant flourishes at the ends of letters, modeled on the way a paintbrush flares out when painting letters. Used extensively in print, these can sometimes be harder to read on a digital screen because of the additional detail. However, digitally optimized serif fonts can look amazing in presentations as titles or body text because of their elegant and classic look. Examples of well-known serif fonts include Times New Roman, Georgia, and Garamond. 

Sans serif  is the French term for ‘without serif.’ Sans serif fonts do not have these fancy flourishes; they became widespread on digital screens because their simpler design was easier to render in pixels. Sans serif fonts look modern, clean, and simple, making them a great choice for the body text of your presentations. Well-known examples of sans serif fonts include Arial, Lato, Helvetica, Calibri, and Verdana. 

Don’t worry — you don’t have to pick just one type of font and stick to it. In fact, using sans serif fonts for titles and serif fonts for body text, or vice versa, can look stylish and cohesive in your presentation. A good technique is to pick one serif font and one complementary sans serif font to make your presentation design pop. 

Yes, it’s a classic, but it’s a classic for a reason. Arial is so commonly used and well-known that it projects instant familiarity and authority. It looks clean, clear, and persuasive at any font size. Most importantly, it doesn’t distract from what you’re talking about. 

Best for:  Instructive presentations such as internal company workshops or training sessions. If you’re teaching people a new skill or informing them about policy changes or important information, a clear and easy-to-read font like Arial is ideal. 

Add it to your template as:  Body text. 

What this presentation font says about you:  You’re trustworthy and know what you’re talking about. Questions will be taken at the end. 

League Spartan

Approachable, fun, and a little bit trendy without trying too hard, League Spartan gives your presentation a fresh and youthful appearance. Sans serif typeface in your titles adds visual interest to your slides, especially when fashioned in your brand colors. 

Best for:  Welcome and onboarding presentations, progress updates, and informational presentations. 

Add it to your template as:  Eye-catching titles and attractive sub-headings.

What this presentation font says about you:  You’ve got important information to share, but you’re not afraid to have a little fun as a presentation maker.

Lovelo Black

Bold and attention-grabbing, the thick strokes and all-caps letters of Lovelo Black make it the perfect sans-serif title font. This typeface looks great on a slide deck with lots of pictures and minimal text, drawing the focus to the screen. Alternatively, if you’re feeling a bit funkier, why not try Lovelo Line for a distinctive line-based version of the font? 

Best for:  Image-based presentations, marketing pitches, and storyteller-style presentations.

Add it to your template as:  Big, bold titles. 

What  this presentation font  says about you:  You’re ready to inform  and  entertain your audience.

Another of those famous fonts that shows up everywhere, Montserrat has a modern appearance that looks great on screens. Fun fact: Montserrat was inspired by signage and posters in Buenos Aires and is often used in design and marketing materials. 

Best for:  Pitches, sales proposals, video resumes, and inspirational presentations. 

Add it to your template as : titles or body text — it looks great either way!

What this presentation font says about you:  You’re modern and with it. You’ve got a great eye for design, and this presentation is evidence of that.  

De Valencia

Minimalist yet elegant, De Valencia is a distinctive typeface that works best when splashed across your slides in large font sizes. The tall, well-defined letters with large spaces between them make a great title slide that will catch your audience’s eye.

Best for:  Motivational and inspirational presentations. 

Add it to your template as : short titles — don’t overwhelm your slide with too much of this font. 

What this presentation font says about you:  You’re thoughtful and creative, appreciating a touch of flair to your presentations. Your audience will walk away feeling uplifted and inspired. 

Cabin Sketch

In contrast to the minimalist design of De Valencia, Cabin Sketch can only be described as maximalist. This fun, hand-drawn style title font looks informal and friendly when used correctly. If you’re looking for a font that keeps it casual or is appealing to a younger audience, Cabin Sketch is the one for you. 

Best for:  Informative and educational presentations aimed at a younger or mixed audience. 

Add it to your template as  Titles and subtitles. Keep the color scheme simple, or your presentation will end up looking too messy. 

What  this presentation font  says about you:  You’re approachable and fun; come say hi after the presentation!

Fonts to avoid in 2023

Using Comic Sans in your deck just screams ‘2007 school project PowerPoint presentation’. It’s not the fault of this playful rounded typeface, but unless you’re creating a presentation for small children, it’s a definite no-no. 

If you’re looking for a child-friendly handwriting style font that isn’t a total cliche, try Schoolbell or Shadows into Light. Both convey that informal handwritten feel; these add more visual interest than boring old Comic Sans.  

There’s a reason that Impact is sometimes referred to as ‘the meme font.’ Its use in the 2000s and 2010s internet memes has sadly made Impact font unusable in 2023. Sure, it’s eye-catching, but Impact will make your presentation appear totally outdated and low quality — not a good look! 

For a similarly bold and attention-grabbing font that hasn’t been beaten to death by the internet, try Beethoven or Chunky. These stylish fonts are loud and fun, keeping your presentation informal while still looking high-quality and well-designed. 

Times New Roman

So named because it was commissioned by the Times newspaper in the 1930s, Times New Roman is a classic serif font that can look great both on screens and in print. However, its use as a Microsoft default font has forever led to it being associated with the word processor. Using Times New Roman in your presentation risks making your deck look unfinished, as though you made it in PowerPoint and forgot to change the typeface to something better. It’s a shame, but outside of printed newspapers, there’s no use for Times New Roman in 2023. 

A better serif font to use in your presentations is Playfair Display or Poppins, two gorgeous, glossy typefaces that add a touch of that old-school luxury to your titles. 

Perfect your own presentations with Powtoon

Looking to create a beautiful presentation in minutes? Powtoon is a free presentation maker with a wide range of  presentation templates  to suit every occasion, from proposals and value propositions to onboarding and training templates. Put together by our expert designers with stunning layouts and fonts, the templates allow you to easily customize the text, color schemes, images, and animations. To get started,  sign up for your free account  today and start making amazing video content for presentations, social media, and more!

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What fonts to use in your presentation

Fonts greatly impact the look and feel of your presentation. If you are bound by a corporate presentation template, where font use has already been decided for you, skip this section and move on to the next chapter. If not, its important you make a number of educated decisions regarding fonts.

CUSTOM OR STANDARD FONTS

The first choice you have to make, is whether to use custom fonts or stick to the standard ones installed on your computer. When you open a PowerPoint or Keynote file, any custom font not installed, will automatically be replaced by your operating system. While this might work for a textual document or email, it is a disaster for a carefully crafted presentation.

Your characters will look different from what you intended and the worst of it is, that different fonts have slightly different sizes. Text boxes created just wide enough to fit a crucial sentence, now suddenly cut off an extra line added due to the random font replacement. An entire chart can be thrown into chaos.

Such font issues only occur with software that enables text to be edited, such as PowerPoint, Keynote, Word, etc. In other file formats, such as PDF or images (JPG, PNG), fonts are baked in as pixels, so the text appears just as you designed and intended it, regardless of the fonts installed on your machine.

PowerPoint offers the ability to similarly embed fonts into a presentation, but this feature only works on the Microsoft Windows platform. In PowerPoint for Mac OSX, you cannot do this. With an increasing number of people switching to Mac platforms, I would hence not rely on custom fonts. 

Tablets and mobile devices create additional issues for fonts. The font library on a mobile device is even more restricted than that installed on a Mac or a Windows machine. Mobile technology has progressed, but in 2012, presenting a full deck of slides on a mobile device is not customary. 

People check their emails more and more on the go, and your presentation will suffer if it is not legible on their devices because of poor font choice. Create a presentation that will look good on any station or device.

Usually, sans serif fonts work better

STANDARD FONTS

There are two basic types of fonts, serif and sans serif. Serif fonts have little extended hooks at the bottom of each character, and sans serif do not.

For printed copy, serif fonts work great because these hooks help the eye connect between letters on the page you hold. It is similar to cursive handwriting in that sense, and makes it easier to read the text, especially in small font sizes. For on-screen presentations, sans serif fonts are the better option, since they come across clearer in larger font size. In print, designers often use several fonts. Body text is set in one font type, headlines in another, page numbers and footnotes in a third.

For presentation design, it is best to stick with one font to gain a calmer design. If you think about it, all text in a well designed presentation is actually a heading.

GOOD STANDARD SANS SERIF FONTS

Windows : Calibri is standard serif font for PowerPoint. It’s an attractive typeface that’s very legible, but it has fallen victim to its own success, popularity over-identifying it with PowerPoint. You cannot use Calibri and expect to create a “PowerPoint that does not look like PowerPoint.” On a Windows machine, I prefer Arial, the Microsoft variant of Mac’s Helvetica. Arial Black in all-caps looks surprisingly well.

Mac : unlike Microsoft, Apple did decide to pay royalty fees for Helvetica and it’s installed as a standard font on all Apple computers. Helvetica is an excellent choice for a presentation font. Windows automatically replaces Helvetica to Arial. Apple itself uses the font Myriad Pro in its presentations. It looks good, but they run the risk of font replacement, since it is not installed on Windows computers.

iPad : the latest version of iOS includes a fairly rich set of fonts. You can check the web site  iosfonts.com  for a complete list. If you are working within the Apple ecosystem, pick your standard font from this list to ensure your presentation can show up nicely on both Mac and mobile device.

No Comic Sans please

A FONT TO AVOID

Comic Sans  has been profusely used in children’s party invitations and secondhand car ads. Your presentation will inevitably resemble these too if you chose to use this font.

OTHER STANDARD FONTS

Its worth considering these fonts for your presentation, but remember to first check if you like their appearance on mobile devices.

• Century Gothic, a light and elegant font.
• Franklin Gothic, includes a good narrow variety.
• Verdana, very clear for screens, but is very wide and less efficient.

If you cannot decide on a font, use wordmark.it to display a string of text styled in the variety of fonts installed on your computer.

CUSTOM FONTS

If you decided to go for custom fonts, you have the entire universe of font possibilities at your disposal. Still, its advisable to exercise restraint. Custom fonts I use most frequently include different weights of Helvetica, with medium for body text, and bold condensed weight for headlines.

With Arial, the problem is not so much its shape being somewhat less elegant than Helvetica. It’s the fact that it only comes in very limited weights, regular and bold, and correctly choosing the weight of a font has the biggest affect on the visual appearance of your text.

For a more industrial look for your presentation, try setting headlines in the all-caps  Beebas Neue , a free open source font, or  League Gothic  for a narrower setting.

You cannot go wrong with these classics

FONTS CONSIDERED CLASSIC

This last century has introduced a number of fonts considered classics by professional print designers. Here is a partial list that will look good in a presentation design.

• Helvetica Neue , and Helvetica Neue Condensed.
• Frutiger , a predecessor of Helvetica, designed for airport signage.
• Futura , going back to the Bauhaus movement, also look at the Condensed Extra Bold variety which I use for the Idea Transplant logo. Futura is great mainly in all-caps.
• Gill Sans , the original font of the London underground.
• Meta , very legible on screens.
• Myriad Pro , the corporate font of Apple, applied in all their communication.
• Optima , somewhere in between a serif and a sans serif, very elegant yet less legible on screens.
• Univers , a classic similar to Helvetica, which also comes in endless amounts of weights.

There are many books about fonts and typography. The mother of all such books is the  Font Book , weighing some 3kg. Luckily, an  iPad  version  has become available. Weighs a lot less and affordable a lot more.

And now for something completely different

OUTRAGEOUS FONTS

Sometimes a slide design may require an outrageous font, for extremely funny text, extra loud messages, fat styles, handwritten notes or cartoonish messages for which Comic Sans won’t do.

If you use such a font in one slide only, it’s not worth the effort to require its installation on your viewer’s machine. Instead, create the required text on your own machine, save it as an image, and paste it back in your slide. Remember to copy the original, editable text to an appendix, in case you’ll need to make revisions in the future.

Font Squirrel  is a site that offers a rich library of free fonts, and is a good hunting ground for the unusual ones. In book stores you can find numerous print books that come complete with CD-ROMs showcasing free fonts. 

Here are some examples of outrageous fonts I had a chance to use in the past.

• Boopee  for a handwritten effect that looks a lot better than the profusely used Comic Sans font.
• Impact Label  mimics the look of a 1970s labeling machine.
• Feast of flesh  is the basic font type of the Angry Birds game.
• Boycott  is a grunge, distorted, font that comes only in caps.
• American Typewriter  used in the famous “I heart NY” logo, it is another option to consider.

FONT SIZE

There are no rules for the right size font, only general guidelines. A font smaller than 18 points will prove hard to read for audience sitting in the back of the room. I always use PowerPoint’s Slide Sorter view, or the Keynote Light Table view, to present a series of slide thumbnails in front of me. This gives me an idea of how legible my slides are at a distance.

Having said that, bigger size font is not always better. If your slides have ample free space, it might be better to keep it blank. Maintain an elegant, moderately sized text line, instead of filling up the page with large typography.

Software is optimized for using text intended for reading, at 12 - 18 points. Using fonts bigger than these entails increasing the spacing between lines, the so called leading. By default in both PowerPoint and Keynote, the leading between two lines of text is set to 1.0. This means that if you use font size 14, your text leading will be 1.0x14 = 14, as well. This works fine for smaller font sizes. For larger font sizes, I recommend going down to 0.8, or 0.7.

Emphasizing by de-emphasizing

HIGHLIGHTING TEXT

The intuitive approach to highlighting text for emphasis, is applying the full artillery of typographical tools:  bold ,  italic , ALL-CAPS, or  ALL OF THE ABOVE . I find the result is unattractive, and will give your audience the impression you’re broadcasting your message too strongly.

Instead of highlighting text, design your slide so that the text naturally stands out. For example, de-emphasize its surroundings, use white space or color differentiation between text items. A subtle  use of bold  can look good on a slide, but underlining never does.  

QUICK SUM UP

Keep your font choices safe, to ensure your presentation looks great on as many devices as possible.