The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Minion Pro vs Times New Roman
Two serif workhorses from opposite ends of the twentieth century. Times New Roman was conceived by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent for The Times newspaper in 1932, a condensed, high-contrast face built for cramped columns, while Robert Slimbach's Minion (Adobe, 1990; OpenType Pro in 2000) is a Garalde old-style text face made for books and extended reading.
Minion Pro is a commercial font, so it is shown here in EB Garamond, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Minion Pro → 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
- Times New Roman is relatively condensed with a high x-height, short descenders and crisp, sharp serifs, tuned for newspaper economy and tight line spacing.
- Minion Pro has a simplified structure, moderate proportions and large apertures, giving it a calmer, more even page color at book sizes.
- Minion Pro ships four optical sizes (Caption, Regular, Subhead, Display) plus two widths and four weights with italics; Times New Roman's common system version is a single optical size in regular, italic, bold and bold italic.
- Both are commercial, but Times New Roman comes pre-installed with Windows (and macOS ships Linotype's Times), whereas Minion Pro is licensed through Adobe Fonts with Creative Cloud or bought separately, so cost and availability depend on your tooling.
Minion Pro
Reach for Minion Pro for books, long reports, academic typesetting and anything where optical sizes and refined old-style details earn their keep.
Times New Roman
Reach for Times New Roman when you need a serif that is already on every machine, for documents, submissions and templates where compatibility and compact columns matter more than character.