Fonts

[chris_notts]

One thing I've been struggling with recently is nicer font(s) for my PDF grammars. I got a bit bored of Times clones like Libertine/Libertinus so I looked at various other old style serif fonts, but the issue is that many free fonts are either terrible at rendering combining characters, or are missing some IPA characters, or have a limited range of weights etc. You just need to look at how many of the fonts here on Google Fonts can correctly render "p͡f t͡s t͡ɬ t͡ʃ": https://fonts.google.com/... many either don't do it, or get the alignment of the tie bar wrong half the time.

You can also try https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts if you want, and on Adobe you can filter for IPA compatibility, although some there are definitely not free... but the list returned is somewhat short.

Free options on Google Fonts which are possibly OK: EB Garamond, Gentium, maybe Cardo (but it seems to lack bold italics?).

Noto Serif and Tinos seem to do OK on the rendering of the test string, but they're not very attractive. Most SIL fonts apart from Gentium render IPA just fine, but are mediocre to ugly in appearance, at least to my eye.

Big system fonts (on Windows at least) which correctly render common IPA but are somewhat uninteresting: Times New Roman, Calibri.

Which fonts are other people using? Is there anything else nice out there that doesn't make a mess of half the common combining characters?

[chris_notts]

This page compares various open source fonts which are good for IPA characters:

https://www.vulgarlang.com/ipafonts/

Of these, EB Garamond looks the best by far to me, and it's also the one I'm currently using.

[Man in Space]

If I need IPA, I tend to use either Helvetica or Computer Modern. I much prefer TT Marxiana, but its limited character set is a challenge.

[Lambuzhao]

Gentium Plus was/is a free font that had a hefty character set. As mentioned above, it's also a free font in Google Suite. Another free font, Avdira, was very slick with very nice Cyrillic and Greek characters, though I think it did not do extended IPA.

[Arayaz]

This page compares various open source fonts which are good for IPA characters:

https://www.vulgarlang.com/ipafonts/

Of these, EB Garamond looks the best by far to me, and it's also the one I'm currently using.

A fellow EBG user, hi! I love EBG; the only font that could possibly compare is Alegreya, which doesn't have most IPA characters. (My Laakitlantu grammar is in EBG.)

[chris_notts]

This page compares various open source fonts which are good for IPA characters:

https://www.vulgarlang.com/ipafonts/

Of these, EB Garamond looks the best by far to me, and it's also the one I'm currently using.

A fellow EBG user, hi! I love EBG; the only font that could possibly compare is Alegreya, which doesn't have most IPA characters. (My Laakitlantu grammar is in EBG.)

Interestingly, there's an Alegreya Sans which might make a decent title/header counterpart to EBG? For headers, the lack of IPA doesn't really matter.

[Reyzadren]

In my conlang descriptions that include IPA symbols, I use the Source Sans Pro font instead.

[Dormouse559]

I find Palatino to be quite elegant and distinct, and it has strong IPA support. When I want to convince myself that my conlang's orthography isn't irredeemably ugly, I type a bit of it in Palatino It comes preloaded on Apple products, but I don't know how accessible it is for non-Apple users.

[Arayaz]

I find Palatino to be quite elegant and distinct, and it has strong IPA support. When I want to convince myself that my conlang's orthography isn't irredeemably ugly, I type a bit of it in Palatino It comes preloaded on Apple products, but I don't know how accessible it is for non-Apple users.

I have added it to my font set! It is beautiufl.