The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Best free alternatives to
Imperial
Edwin W. Shaar drew Imperial for Intertype in 1954 as a hard-working newspaper text face: compact, robust, and built to stay legible at small sizes on fast presses and cheap paper. It became a fixture of American news typography and has set the body text of The New York Times in print since the 1960s, later carrying over to the paper's website. It is a typeface almost nobody names and millions read every day. These free typefaces work in that tradition.
The closest font to ImperialThe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Display + body that work together
Headlines, written under pressure
Two thousand years of letterforms boil down to a handful of decisions — width, weight, proportion. Pick a pair you trust, and let the rest take care of itself.
Editorial · Modern PT Serif + Public Sans
A grammar of empty space
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.
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Common questions about Imperial alternatives
- Is Imperial free?
- No — Imperial is a commercial typeface from Intertype. Digital versions of Imperial are sold through commercial foundries and resellers, typically for a few tens of dollars per style; the version The New York Times uses is tuned for its own production. The closest free alternative is PT Serif, available on Google Fonts.
- What font is similar to Imperial?
- PT Serif is the closest free match. A compact, economical text serif with sturdy strokes and a no-nonsense news voice; it holds up at small sizes and dense settings the way Imperial was engineered to.
- Can I use PT Serif in commercial projects?
- Yes — PT Serif is published under a free license on Google Fonts and can be used in commercial work. Confirm the license text at the source before shipping.