12 Best Serif Fonts in Microsoft Word

You can split fonts into two main styles. There are serif fonts (with lines flicking out of each letter) and sans-serif fonts (without the lines). Serif fonts tend to be easier to read, but they look more formal. This article will show you some of the best ones in Word.

Best Serif Fonts in Microsoft Word

The best serif fonts in Microsoft Word are Times New Roman, Garamond, and Palatino Linotype. They all work well to show a more formal look in your writing. They’re also very easy to read, making them solid choices if you’re looking to write an essay or academic paper.

Best Serif Fonts in Microsoft Word

Times New Roman

Times New Roman is the default Microsoft Word font. You really can’t go wrong with it. Everyone knows what it looks like, and everyone uses it as the default serif font in Word. If you don’t actively change your font, it’s likely that you’re writing in Times New Roman.

It is a very professional font that has been proven to be one of the easiest to read on paper. It also makes your writing look more trustworthy, which works wonders when you use it for something like an academic or scientific paper.

You will find that Times New Roman is one of the most popular fonts in the world. It’s such a good choice because of how popular it is, and it can fit in just about anywhere in your writing. It works well for titles and in the main body of the text.

Garamond

Garamond is another great serif font that works really well. It comes in at a close second to Times New Roman, which is saying a lot considering how popular Times New Roman is. Garamond is fairly easy to read, and it even comes in slightly smaller in size.

Garamond is a great font that makes your writing much more concise. The smaller size of this font allows you to fit more words onto your page without feeling like you’re writing an essay full of gibberish and waffle.

If people decided to choose a different serif font in place of Times New Roman, it’s likely that Garamond would rank quite highly as their next favorite pick.

Palatino Linotype

Palatino Linotype is a great font choice that a lot of people enjoy using. It feels a bit fresher than some of the other serif fonts, and the size of the letters makes it a little more appealing when you are writing it for more informal purposes.

You will find that Palatino Linotype looks good wherever you put it. It can be both in a heading or in the main text body. As long as you like the look of the font, you’ll find a great place to put it to make sure it fits in.

The letters on Palatino Linotype feel a little more “open” than those of Times New Roman and Garamond. That’s what makes it a better choice if you’re looking for something that’s a little bit easier to read or comes across with more informal energy.

Georgia

Georgia is a very popular choice that a lot of essay writers are recommended to use. Many academics also vouch for Georgia, making it a really good choice if you’re looking to capture a more formal and trustworthy look.

People say that Georgia works really well as a heading. While this is definitely true, there is nothing wrong with using it as part of the main body of your text either. It can work in just about any situation, which makes it a great serif font choice.

While it’s not as popular as Times New Roman, it’s definitely up there in terms of how many people use it. It’s a fairly generic serif font, so there aren’t any specific style choices that stand it out from some of the rest.

Cambria

Cambria is another great serif font that is a default choice in Microsoft Word. While it isn’t automatically set as a font choice, it is automatic if you use the specific Word style that allows you to write headings and sub-headings.

Cambria is one of the best choices to introduce new ideas with headings and sub-headings. Of course, you don’t have to be limited to including it as a heading. If you want it as the text body, too, that’s fine.

You’ll find that this ranks highly in popularity compared to many of the other fonts. It looks really good on the page because of the more “square” feel that the letters have.

Bodoni MT

Bodoni MT is a classical serif font that works well. People like to use this font for novels, which shows that it must be an easy-to-read choice. The purpose of novels is to have thousands of words page after page, so having an easy-to-read font is always going to be ideal.

Bodoni MT is one of the thicker fonts on this list. It almost looks like it is written in bold, which really helps it to stand out from some of the other options. It works really well when it’s used to write multiple words at the same time.

The serif style looks very similar to some of the best fonts on this list, too. While this doesn’t allow Bodoni MT to be unique, it does allow it to have a familiar look and feel to it.

Bookman Old Style

Bookman Old Style is another great font that is common for novels. Again, if it works well in novels, you can bet that it works well in any situation when you might need someone to read through what you’re writing carefully.

Bookman Old Style is a large font. It allows the letters to appear more free and open compared to many of the other choices. This makes it a great font that’s worth trying out.

Lucida Bright

Lucida Bright is a good font choice. It’s part of the famous Lucida font family, and it works really well to show a large serif style. Lucida Bright is one of the larger fonts on this list, making it a great choice if you’re trying to make your writing really easy to read.

Some people would argue that Lucida Bright is too large for most formal documents. It does mean that you’ll take up a few extra pages because of your larger font choice, but this isn’t always a problem. Sometimes, it’s refreshing to include a larger font.

Modern No. 20

Modern No. 20 is an interesting serif font that doesn’t often get used. It’s a great choice nonetheless, and it applies to situations where some of the other serif fonts might feel a bit too pretentious or samey.

Modern No. 20 has very sharp serifs on its letters. While all of the fonts discussed so far have decent serif accents, Modern No. 20 seems to have some of the largest serifs that really help it to bring a unique style to your writing.

It’s much smaller than most of the other options too. It makes for a great choice if you’re trying to include a lot of information in one area without feeling like you have to fill up a lot of pages to get it to work.

Rockwell

Rockwell is a great option that many people like to use. It comes from the Rockwell family, which has made its name with more obvious and impactful fonts like ExtraBold and Condensed. Rockwell on its own is a great option for your serif-font needs.

It fits a similar style to most of the other serif fonts. There is nothing particularly unique that makes it stand out, which is usually a good thing. People don’t like their serif fonts to look out of place in their writing, and Rockwell will fit in no matter where you put it.

Poor Richard

Poor Richard is a great font in Microsoft Word that deserves more attention. It’s a very attractive font that comes with small lower-case letters. The capital letters tend to dwarf the lower-case ones, making it an interesting font style that the other serif fonts don’t have.

This font style is both a blessing and a curse, depending on how you look at it. It’s a blessing because it means that Poor Richard has a unique personality that allows it to stand out from the rest of the serif crowd.

It’s a curse because the uniqueness and size of the font in its style mean it doesn’t work very well formally. You’ll find that Poor Richard is a much better serif font for your informal writing.

Perpetua

Perpetua follows the same general idea as Poor Richard. It’s not all that popular, but it deserves to be. It’s a great font with an interesting style (most of which comes from the way some of the letters go below the written line, like the “p’s” and “q’s”).

Perpetua works really well in formal and informal contexts. It’s worth trying to use it yourself to see whether you can get along with it. A lot of people think it’s an attractive font, but it doesn’t often get used because it’s not a very well-known name.

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