Google Fonts (formerly known as Google Web Fonts) is a

computer font A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for printi ...

and web font service owned by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. This includes

free and open source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

font families, an interactive web directory for browsing the library, and APIs for using the fonts via CSS and Android. Google Fonts is also used with

Google Workspace Google Workspace (formerly G Suite, formerly Google Apps) is a collection of cloud computing, Productivity software, productivity and Collaborative software, collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It con ...

software such as Docs, Sheets, Drawings and Slides. Popular fonts in the Google Fonts library include Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Oswald,

Montserrat Montserrat ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about long and wide, wit ...

, and

Source Sans Pro Source Sans (known as Source Sans Pro before 2021) is a sans-serif typeface created by Paul D. Hunt, released by Adobe in 2012. It is the first open-source font family from Adobe, distributed under the SIL Open Font License. The typeface is in ...

. National Fonts and PT Fonts are also available in the Google Fonts library.

History

Google Fonts was launched in 2010 and revamped in 2011, 2016, 2020 and 2023 On March 3, 2020, Google updated the catalog website with support for

variable fonts A variable font (VF) is a font file that is able to store a continuous range of design variants. An entire typeface (font family) can be stored in such a file, with an infinite number of fonts available to be sampled. The variable font technolo ...

. On March 2, 2021, the Google Fonts team announced they were adding support for open source icons.

Font library

, Google Fonts had 1821 font families, including 468 variable font families. The library is maintained through Google Fonts'

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

repository, where all font files can be obtained directly. Source files for many of the fonts are available from

git Git () is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively. Design goals of Git include speed, data integrity, and suppor ...

repositories within the Google Fonts' GitHub organization, along with

libre software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

tools used by the Google Fonts community.

Licenses and distribution

Most of the fonts are released under the

SIL Open Font License The SIL Open Font License (or OFL in short) is one of the major open font licenses, which allows embedding, or "bundling", of the font in commercially sold products. OFL is a free and open source license. It was created by SIL Global, the ...

1.1, while some are released under the

Apache License The Apache License is a permissive free software license written by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). It allows users to use the software for any purpose, to distribute it, to modify it, and to distribute modified versions of the software ...

; both are libre licenses. The font library is also distributed by

Monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...

's SkyFonts and Adobe's Edge Web Fonts and

Adobe Fonts Adobe Fonts (formerly Typekit) is an online service that provides its subscribers with access to its font library, under a single licensing agreement. The fonts may be used directly on websites, or synced via Adobe Creative Cloud to applications ...

(formerly Typekit) services.

Privacy issues

In February 2022, a German court ruled that a website using Google Fonts violated the European Union

General Data Protection Regulation The General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), abbreviated GDPR, is a European Union regulation on information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of ...

(GDPR) by passing personally identifiable information (

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

) to Google without the user's consent or a legitimate interest in doing so. The proceedings related to embedding via a link to Google's servers and were only pursued by a warning lawyer with fraudulent intent. If the fonts are integrated from your own website, no information is transferred to Google, so this risk does not exist at all. See article in the German Wikipedia for further details.

References

External links

* {{Free and open-source typography Typography

Fonts In movable type, metal typesetting, a font is a particular #Characteristics, size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) inclu ...