The 10 Best PowerPoint Fonts for Your Presentation Design

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

Its hallmarks include wide spaces and counters with tall lowercase letters that boost readability. Verdana is also one of the most compatible fonts available in almost all Windows and Mac computers.

2. Calibri

Calibri is a popular Sans Serif font, second only to Arial, which it replaced in Microsoft Office 2007 to become the standard font used in the suit. Its use in PowerPoint presentations is favored for obvious reasons.

Calibri is simple and clear, with subtly rounded edges. It is the ideal choice when looking for a universal, readable Sans Serif PowerPoint font.

3. Palatino

Hermann Zapf designed Palatino back in 1949 based on type styles originating from the Italian Renaissance period. He was influenced by calligraphic works and created the Palatino font for advertising and print media headings.

Hermann also aimed to keep the font legible on low-quality paper and small-sized prints, including when viewed at a distance, making it ideal for PowerPoint presentation fonts. It is almost impossible to tell from Book Antiqua.

4. Tahoma

This font was designed for Microsoft and boasts the best clarity for presentations. Tahoma provides characters that are distinguishable from each other and looks more like Verdana, albeit tightly spaced for a more formal look.

Tahoma fonts came with Windows 95 and have since been used in PowerPoint presentations for their unique clarity and readability.

5. Georgia

Georgia is highly regarded for its elegance and combines thick and thin strokes to provide well-spaced Serif characters. The font also features tall lowercase letters and has a classic look perfect for any presentation.

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

6. Gill Sans

Gill Sans is another classic presentation font that suits headers paired with Times New Roman body text. However, you can pair it with various other fonts.

It provides a warm and friendly appeal similar to that you find in Helvetica, another incredible choice for presentation fonts. There are multiple options, but Gill Sans MT remains the most uncomplicated and appealing in the family.

7. Corbel

This font was designed with one goal in mind and that's to provide clean text without clutter on the screen. It was actually designed specifically for LCD monitors, so you know it’s optimized for presentations. Corbel is considered a "soft" font with curvy letterforms and old-style, lowercase numbers. The font is clean and clear, making it a natural choice for presentations that call for massive contrast. Its spacing also allows for readability at a distance.

It was released in 2005 to work with Microsoft's clear-type rendering, making it ideal for PowerPoint presentations. Corbel is quite similar to Candara, albeit more assertive with box dots (instead of circles) above lower cases for I and J.

8. Segoe

The Segoe family of fonts is one of the best for presentations. It has been Microsoft's choice font for their logo and all other marketing materials, since the days of Windows Vista.

Segoe is quite similar to Verdana and maintains a warm, inviting look that's still airy and perfect on screens. The fonts feature wider spaces and heavier letters, making them ideal for headers.

9. Garamond

This is one of the oldest fonts around, created back in the 1500s by Claude Garamond. Rather than a font, this is a style of fonts that includes different options, such as Adobe Garamond, Garamond ITC and Monotype Garamond.

The Roman Style fonts feature horizontal bars for letter "e" and ascended verticals crafted so for legibility in print. They are perfect for body text and provide quick contrast between title and text.

10. Century Gothic

Lastly, we can’t end this list without mentioning Century Gothic. It’s a sans-serif typeface with a geometric style. It was released in 1991 by Monotype Imaging, designed to compete with the ever-famous Futura. It’s style is very similar to the competitor, but with a larger x-height.

Century Gothic is based on Monotype 20th Century, which was drawn by Sol Hess between 1936 and 1947. It’s noted as being useful in advertising, such as headlines, display work and small quantities of text. Open Sans and Montserrat are also good alternatives here, but are not available to Microsoft users.

7 Tips for Choosing PowerPoint Fonts

Here are seven tips to help you find the best PowerPoint fonts for your presentation:

1. Stick to Standard Fonts

There are several fonts you can use for your presentation. However, you are better off choosing standard fonts, such as Calibri, Tahoma, Gill Sans and Garamond, or even Times New Roman and Constantia. People are already fond of these fonts and see them often, which is great for readability.

2. Consider Contrast

When it comes to both font types and colors, aim for high contrast!

For example, black and white font colors are the easiest to read, so you should choose black fonts for white backgrounds and vice versa. Same goes for a light font on a dark background, dark on light backgrounds.

Some font types are thin and lightweight, while others are dark and thick, so the decision depends on your presentation. Nonetheless, make sure you have plenty of contrast to ensure your audience can clearly read the copy—even if you're just sharing your PowerPoint online. (It's also important to note that dont size for presenation is key—make sure your that your audience can read the words on screen).

3. Consider font pairing

Font pairing is instrumental as it creates instant hierarchy. However, you need to find the right pair, or your presentation will look amateur.

The standard approach is to pair Serif with Sans Serif fonts, which are the two main categories advisable when creating a presentation. Though you are definitely not limited to those styles. The rule of thumb is to use one font group for headers and the other for bullet text.

4. Stay away from all-caps fonts

All caps presentation fonts are hard to read, especially when you have a block of text. Also… do you want your audience to think you’re yelling at them?! PROBABLY NOT.

Capitalizing everything is more suited to alarms and single-word warnings. When it comes to presentation, you need fonts that allow you to mix cases at will, so you should avoid all fonts available in caps only.

5. Choose the right size

It is always essential to make the font big enough so that everyone can see and read. When determining size, think about the presentation screen and how the fonts look on larger/smaller displays. Some fonts are large, while others can be significantly smaller. It is also crucial to determine how other aspects, such as line and character spacing, affect the font.

6. Avoid Scripts, Italics and Decorative Fonts

Typefaces taken from novelty, scripts and handwritings are some of the coolest. However, they present a readability issue that transcends all the merits for featuring such fonts in your presentation. They also distract the audience and are more suited to online content and media. Presentations require enhancements that make the text easier to read.

7. Create Consistency

Like other forms of art, presentations are best when simple, so there's no need to download a complete library of fonts. A couple of options used consistently throughout your presentation will suffice. Make sure the font sizes, headers, bullets and text are consistent from start to finish, especially if you are creating professional presentations.

Conclusion

There are no hard rules when it comes to picking fonts for presentations—even if you're working off of a PowerPoint template. If anything, your project will determine the ideal fonts you should use. The layout, background, images and other aspects will all influence your font options.

Nonetheless, if you stick to standard fonts and keep things relatively simple and consistent, you should have one of the best presentations, in terms of readability. In addition to the ten fonts above, Lato, Roboto, Rockwell, Frutiger and Helvetica are all perfect for PowerPoint presentation.

If you're looking for tips on how to instal fonts into PowerPoint, follow this guide.

Rather have someone else design your PowerPoint for you? We've got you covered with our custom presentation design service.