The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Best free alternatives to
Palatino
Stempel released Palatino in 1949, designed by Hermann Zapf with punchcutter August Rosenberger and named after the 16th-century Italian writing master Giambattista Palatino. Zapf was a calligrapher, and the letters carry the broad-nib logic of Italian Renaissance humanist type, with an unusually large x-height that keeps it legible on poor paper and at small sizes. Zapf intended it as a jobbing face for headings and advertising, but it became a book and body face anyway, especially after Linotype licensed it to Adobe and Apple as one of the PostScript core fonts. These free typefaces work the same old-style register without the license fee.
The closest font to PalatinoThe 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
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Display + body that work together
The shape of a working week
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 Crimson Pro + Manrope
Quiet type that does the work
The display sets the register; the body follows through. When both halves of a pair pull in the same direction, the design disappears and the words come forward.
Modern · Editorial Switzer + Crimson Pro
Fonts like Palatino
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Common questions about Palatino alternatives
- Is Palatino free?
- No — Palatino is a commercial typeface from Linotype (originally D. Stempel AG). Palatino is a commercial typeface sold by Linotype through Monotype's MyFonts; the Palatino Linotype version ships with Windows under Microsoft's licence, and only clones such as URW Palladio L and TeX Gyre Pagella are free. The closest free alternative is Crimson Pro, available on Google Fonts.
- What font is similar to Palatino?
- Crimson Pro is the closest free match. Jacques Le Bailly's reworking of Sebastian Kosch's Crimson Text, an old-style book serif built for long reading. It shares Palatino's Renaissance proportions, open counters and calligraphic stress, though its x-height is a touch smaller and its serifs lighter, so it reads more like a classic book face than Zapf's sturdy jobbing type.
- Can I use Crimson Pro in commercial projects?
- Yes — Crimson Pro 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.