The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Calibri vs Times New Roman
The two fonts that defined Microsoft Word for a generation: Times New Roman was Word's default until 2007, and Calibri replaced it and held the job until Aptos took over in 2024. One is a 1932 newspaper serif built for economy on newsprint, the other a 2004 humanist sans built for reading on screen. Neither is free, though both ship bundled with Windows and Office.
Calibri is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Carlito, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Calibri → Times New Roman is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Tinos, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Times New Roman →
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
- Calibri was designed by Lucas de Groot for Microsoft's ClearType collection, a humanist sans-serif with softly rounded stroke ends that were tuned for long on-screen reading.
- Times New Roman was commissioned by The Times of London, drawn by Victor Lardent under Stanley Morison's direction from Plantin and Perpetua experiments, and debuted in the paper on 3 October 1932 as a narrow, space-saving serif for newsprint.
- Calibri's Office family is six styles (Regular, Bold, Light, and their italics), while Times New Roman's Windows family is the classic four: Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic.
- Both are commercial: Microsoft bundles them with Windows and Office rather than selling them as standalone downloads, so web embedding or app redistribution means a separate license, and Monotype sells Times New Roman through MyFonts for roughly $51 per style.
- Times New Roman's metrics have free drop-in matches (Tinos in Google Docs, Liberation Serif in LibreOffice), while Calibri's metric-compatible stand-in is Carlito, a Google-sourced font with a narrower weight range.
Calibri
Reach for Calibri when you want a soft, unfussy sans for everyday documents, slide decks, and long on-screen reading, and your audience already has it installed with Office.
Times New Roman
Reach for Times New Roman when a brief, journal, or formal submission calls for a dense, conservative serif, or when you need the classic typewriter-era look of a double-spaced manuscript.