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How sure can you be that the font you specify will be present on the end user's machine? This is the latest snapshot of the of the Code Style Unix font survey and should give you greater confidence in selecting a font.
Subscribe to the news feed for these survey results: 
The most common Linux fonts
The most common font reported for Unix family systems are Matthew Carter's serif Bitstream Charter for X Windows at 89% frequency, followed by the monospace font Nimbus Mono L and cursive font URW Chancery L. The serif font Century Schoolbook L and sans serif font URW Chancery L complete the five most common Linux fonts at 86.43% frequency.
Survey statistics
These figures are the cumulative total of about 1 Linux survey submission per week since January 2004, 339 total. The average number of fonts reported per submission is 21 of the 57 included in the Unix font family survey sample.
| Font name | Installed (%) | Sample | Image | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitstream Charter | 89.47% |
|
Sample | |
| Nimbus Mono L | 88.79% |
|
Sample | Image |
| URW Chancery L | 88.79% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Century Schoolbook L | 88.20% |
|
Sample | Image |
| URW Gothic L | 86.43% |
|
Sample | Image |
| DejaVu Sans Mono | 84.21% |
|
Sample | |
| URW Bookman L | 82.89% |
|
Sample | Image |
| URW Palladio L | 81.42% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Bitstream Vera Sans Mono | 80.71% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Bitstream Vera Sans | 78.64% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Nimbus Roman No9 L | 76.70% |
|
Sample | |
| Courier | 74.04% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Nimbus Sans L | 72.41% |
|
Sample | |
| Bitstream Vera Serif | 68.55% |
|
Sample | Image |
| DejaVu Sans Condensed | 68.42% |
|
Sample | |
| DejaVu Serif Condensed | 63.16% |
|
Sample | |
| Arial | 62.24% |
|
Sample | Image |
| DejaVu Sans | 62.07% |
|
Sample | |
| Courier New | 61.95% |
|
Sample | |
| Utopia | 61.95% |
|
Sample | Image |
| FreeSerif | 58.62% |
|
Sample | |
| Helvetica | 57.52% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Times New Roman | 56.05% |
|
Sample | |
| FreeMono | 55.17% |
|
Sample | |
| FreeSans | 55.17% |
|
Sample | |
| Verdana | 53.98% |
|
Sample | |
| Arial Black | 53.39% |
|
Sample | |
| Impact | 53.10% |
|
Sample | |
| MgOpen Canonica | 52.63% |
|
Sample | |
| MgOpen Cosmetica | 52.63% |
|
Sample | |
| MgOpen Modata | 52.63% |
|
Sample | |
| MgOpen Moderna | 52.63% |
|
Sample | |
| Georgia | 52.21% |
|
Sample | |
| Comic Sans MS | 51.33% |
|
Sample | |
| Fixed | 50.44% |
|
Sample | Image |
| Trebuchet MS | 49.85% |
|
Sample | |
| Andale Mono | 48.67% |
|
Sample | |
| Times | 48.08% |
|
Sample | |
| New Century Schoolbook | 45.43% |
|
Sample | |
| DejaVu Serif | 44.83% |
|
Sample | |
These are only the top forty fonts, see the full Linux and Unix font survey results (about 100 KB) for a complete listing.
Quick links: Code Style font sampler
-
Windows font survey and font survey results
-
Mac font survey and font survey results
-
Unix family font survey and font survey results
- Combined survey results for all platforms
- Classification by generic font family:
- CSS font family glossary
- Anchor Points: Font foundries & sources
- The font sampler stylesheet: Sampler.css
