Arial - Free Alternatives

Free Alternatives

Arial is a proprietary typeface to which Monotype Imaging owns all rights, including copyright, design and trademark rights. Its licensing terms prohibit derivative works and free redistribution.

There are some free software metric-compatible fonts used as free Arial alternatives or used for Arial font substitution:

  • Liberation Sans is a metrically equivalent font to Arial developed by Ascender Corp. and published by Red Hat in 2007 under the GPL license with some exceptions. It is used in some GNU/Linux distributions as default font replacement for Arial. Liberation Sans Narrow is a metrically equivalent font to Arial Narrow contributed to Liberation fonts by Oracle in 2010.
  • URW++ produced a version of Helvetica called Nimbus Sans L in 1987, and it was eventually released under the GPL and AFPL (as Type 1 font for Ghostscript) in 1996. It is one of the Ghostscript fonts, a free alternatives to 35 basic PostScript fonts (which include Helvetica). It is available in major free and open source operating systems. Nimbus Sans L is also used in some software for Arial font substitution.
  • FreeSans, a free font descending from URW++ Nimbus Sans L, which in turn descends from Helvetica. It is one of free fonts developed in GNU FreeFont project, first published in 2002. It is used in some free software as Arial replacement or for Arial font substitution.

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