The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Free font
Libre Caslon Text
A free alternative to Caslon Pro.
About Libre Caslon Text
Libre Caslon Text is Pablo Impallari's 2014 Caslon revival, drawn specifically for web body text and tuned to read cleanly at 16px. It's a deliberate reinterpretation rather than an old-style cousin, and it keeps the slightly irregular, ink-softened texture of the original — letterforms that look printed rather than plotted, with the warmth that comes from a little unevenness.
That makes it the closest free substitute for Caslon itself, and a strong one for Mrs Eaves, whose letterpress feel descends from the same lineage — Caslon being Baskerville's immediate ancestor. Choose it when a project wants warmth over precision: long-form editorial, book-like layouts, or anywhere a cleanly optimized screen serif would read as too cold. It's available through Google Fonts.
- Designer
- Pablo Impallari
- Released
- 2014
- Available at
- Google Fonts →
Libre Caslon Text is also a free alternative to…
- Caslon Pro → Pablo Impallari's Caslon drawn specifically for small text sizes, the same six-to-fourteen-point territory Adobe Caslon Pro targets. It shares the bracketed serifs, moderate contrast and slightly uneven old-style rhythm, but is sturdier and darker on screen, with only regular, italic and bold.
- Caslon → Pablo Impallari's purpose-built Caslon revival, optimized for web body text at 16px. The closest direct match in this list — a deliberate Caslon reinterpretation rather than an old-style cousin.
- Mrs Eaves → Caslon is Baskerville's immediate ancestor, and this revival keeps the slightly irregular, ink-softened texture that makes Mrs Eaves feel letterpress-printed rather than laser-set. A strong choice when the goal is warmth over precision.
Display + body that work together
Quiet type that does the work
Body type does the heavy lifting. Get it right and the reader never thinks about it; get it wrong and they feel it before they can name what is off.
Editorial · Modern Libre Caslon Text + Manrope
Headlines that read at a glance
Crisp, even strokes give the display its punch. Quiet serifs underneath stay readable across thousands of words — used together by editors at the kind of paper that still prints corrections.
Modern · Editorial Manrope + Libre Caslon Text