Best Resume Fonts and Font Sizes for Readability and ATS

The best font for a resume is a plain, widely installed typeface such as Calibri, Aptos, Arial, Georgia, or Cambria. Set body text at 10.5 to 12 points and your name at 16 to 24. Use 1.0 to 1.15 line spacing and margins between 0.5 and 1 inch. Then export to PDF and check that the text pastes cleanly.

Most font advice stops at a list of names. The list is the easy part. What decides whether your resume reads well is size, spacing, and export. The same font can look crisp at 11 points with room around it, or cramped at 10 points with no space between sections.

This guide covers 12 fonts, exact sizes for every element, spacing specs, pairings, and fonts to avoid. It also explains what ATS software really does with fonts, and how this site's templates size their text.

The best font for a resume: the short answer#

If you want a decision in 30 seconds, use this table. Each pick is widely installed, renders cleanly on screen and paper, and parses without issues in applicant tracking systems.

If none of these feels right, any font from the comparison table later in this guide will work. The gap between good fonts is small. The gap between a good font at the wrong size and the right size is large.

Familiar fonts also read faster, because readers don't have to adjust to new letter shapes. That is the real case for Calibri, Arial, and Georgia: nobody notices them.

What makes a resume font readable#

Readable fonts share a few measurable traits. Knowing them lets you judge any font, including ones not on this list.

X-height: why fonts look different at the same size#

X-height is the height of lowercase letters like x, a, and e compared with the font's full size. Fonts with a tall x-height look bigger and read more easily at small sizes. Fonts with a short x-height look smaller at the same point size. That is why 11-point Garamond looks smaller than 11-point Verdana.

Penn State's accessibility guidance notes that Garamond has a small x-height and light weight. It also notes that Times New Roman's x-height is fairly small, and it recommends Verdana and Georgia for legibility. The chart compares rough x-heights for five common fonts.

The practical lesson: don't set every font at the same size. Verdana at 10 points and Times New Roman at 12 points have lowercase letters of similar height on the page.

Distinct characters#

Good resume fonts make similar characters easy to tell apart: capital I, lowercase l, and the number 1, or the letter O and the number 0. This matters because resumes list software versions, phone numbers, email addresses, and metrics. WebAIM's guide to typefaces points out that in some fonts these characters are nearly identical, which slows readers down.

Quick test: type Il1 O0 rn m in your font at body size. If any pair looks the same, pick another font.

Numbers and figures#

Resumes are full of numbers: revenue, percentages, team sizes, dates, phone numbers. Check how your font draws them. Some fonts, including Georgia, use old-style figures that rise and dip like lowercase letters. They look elegant in prose but can make a bullet packed with metrics look uneven.

Type a sample bullet such as "Cut costs 18% ($240K) in 2025" and make sure every digit reads instantly.

The best resume fonts, compared#

Here are 12 fonts that work well on resumes, with the body size range that makes each one comfortable to read. The ranges account for the x-height differences above.

Sans-serif picks in more detail#

Calibri was Microsoft Office's default font for about 15 years, according to Microsoft Design's announcement of its successor. That history cuts both ways. It is everywhere, so it is safe, but it signals "default settings" to some readers.

Aptos replaced Calibri as the default in Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Excel, with the rollout starting in July 2023. It reads slightly larger and sharper than Calibri at the same size. If you write in Microsoft 365 and export to PDF, it is an excellent choice.

Arial and Helvetica are near twins. Arial ships with both Windows and macOS, so it is the safest choice for an editable file. Helvetica is standard on Macs but not on Windows, so send it as a PDF.

Verdana and Tahoma were designed for screens. Their tall x-heights keep dense content readable at 10 to 10.5 points. Verdana's width does mean fewer words per line.

Serif picks in more detail#

Georgia is the best all-round serif for resumes. It was designed for screen reading and holds up well in print. Cambria is slightly more formal and suits law, finance, government, and academic applications.

Garamond gives a polished, traditional look, but size it up. At 11 points it can look like 10. Times New Roman is perfectly legible, and no system will reject it. It reads as dated in many fields, though, and needs 11.5 to 12 points to match other fonts.

Free fonts beyond the default menu#

Lato, Source Sans 3, Inter, Roboto, and Open Sans are free from Google Fonts and work well on resumes. They look a little less common than Calibri or Arial without losing readability.

The catch is availability. If you send a Word file, the recipient probably doesn't have them installed. Use them only when you send a PDF with the fonts embedded. Most Google Fonts use open licenses that allow embedding, but check the license.

Serif vs. sans-serif: which should you choose?#

The old rule said sans-serif for screens and serif for print. WebAIM notes that this matters much less now that high-resolution screens and better typefaces are common. So choose by tone and field, not by an outdated technical rule.

Lean toward a sans-serif font if:

• You work in tech, startups, marketing, product, design, operations, or sales.
• Your resume will mostly be read on screens.
• You want a modern, neutral look that keeps attention on content.
• You have dense content and need to stay readable at 10.5 points.

Lean toward a serif font if:

• You work in law, finance, academia, publishing, government, or another traditional field.
• You expect your resume to be printed, for example for in-person interview panels.
• You want a formal, established tone.
• You are applying for writing or editorial roles where typography is part of the craft.

If you are torn, use a serif for your name and headings and a sans-serif for body text. The pairing rules are covered below.

Field matters less than people think. Cambria or Georgia fits finance and law, and Aptos or Arial fits tech, but treat that as a tiebreaker. No recruiter rejects an accountant for using Calibri.

Resume font size: exact specs for every element#

Font size is where most resumes go wrong. People shrink text to 9 points to squeeze in more, or bump everything to 12 points until the page looks empty. Use these specs as your starting point.

For your resume header, set your name in your heading font, or your body font, in Bold at 16 to 24 points. Keep the contact line in the body font at 10 to 11 points. Put both in the main body of the page, not in Word's header area, which some systems skip. The resume header guide covers what goes on that line.

Career centers set similar floors. Cornell's College of Human Ecology career guidance says your font size should not go below 10.5 points. It also says margins should not go below 0.5 inches. Treat that as a sensible minimum for any resume.

How size changes what fits on a page#

Every half point matters when you are close to a page break. The model below shows roughly how many lines of body text fit on a US Letter page. It assumes 0.75-inch margins and 1.15 line spacing.

Going from 11 to 10 points buys you about four lines. Cutting two weak bullets buys the same space without making the whole page harder to read. Cut first, shrink last. If you're unsure how long your resume should be, see how long a resume should be.

Hierarchy with as few sizes as possible#

Use three sizes at most: name, section headings, and everything else. Create the rest of the contrast with bold, spacing, and capitals. A page with five font sizes looks busy, and busy pages are hard to skim.

How Resume Trail sizes text, and where it breaks these rules#

Resume Trail's templates don't use the Word fonts above. They use three free typefaces: IBM Plex Sans, Source Serif 4, and IBM Plex Mono. They also handle size differently from a Word document, so here is exactly what they do:

• You choose the size. The design panel sets body text anywhere from 8 to 13 points, in quarter-point steps.
• Each layout starts with its own size. Across the 1,000 layouts, starting body sizes run from 8.75 to 10.5 points. About six in ten start below 10 points.
• Long content shrinks to fit. Every resume is one page. If yours runs long, all the text shrinks together until body text reaches 8 points. The footer then shows "text at" a percentage of your chosen size.
• Monospace is an option. About 1 in 11 layouts use IBM Plex Mono. It is a clean, modern monospace, not a typewriter face, and it parses like any other text. It appears mostly in technical and data-heavy styles. Each letter takes the same width, so fewer words fit on a line.

Those sizes sit below the 10.5-point floor above, and that is a real trade-off. Small type lets a dense one-page layout hold more, but it is harder to read.

To stay inside the guidance, raise the font size to 10.5 points or more in the design panel. Then cut content until the footer stops showing a percentage. If it does show one, do the math: at 10 points, "text at 85%" means your body text prints at 8.5 points. Treat any shrink as a sign to edit, not a fix.

Line spacing, margins, and white space#

Size gets the attention, but spacing does most of the readability work. These are the specs to aim for.

Two rules make the biggest difference:

1. Space between sections should be visibly larger than space between lines. That is how a reader's eye finds the next section without reading every word.
2. Keep all four margins equal or close to it. Uneven margins are the first sign that someone squeezed content to fit.

Set spacing with paragraph settings, not blank lines#

Pressing Enter twice between sections creates gaps you can't fine-tune. Those empty lines can also turn into odd breaks when the file is parsed or converted.

Instead, open the paragraph settings in Word or Google Docs. Set "space before" on your heading style and "space after" on your bullet style. Use the "Multiple" line-spacing option at 1.1 or 1.15. A fixed "Exactly" value can clip tall letters and accents if you change fonts later.

Font pairing rules for resumes#

One font is enough for most resumes. If you want two, follow these rules so the result looks deliberate rather than accidental.

• Never use more than two fonts. Three fonts on one page look like a template accident.
• Give each font one job. For example, one font for your name and headings, another for everything else.
• Pair contrasting styles. A serif with a sans-serif works. Two similar sans-serifs side by side look like a mistake.
• Match the overall tone. A formal serif heading with a friendly rounded body font sends mixed signals.
• Or skip pairing entirely. One family in Regular and Bold gives you enough contrast with zero risk.

These pairings are safe, widely available, and work in most fields:

If you are choosing a template rather than building from scratch, the guide on how to choose a resume template explains which design elements help. It also covers which ones create parsing risk.

Matching your resume and cover letter font#

Your cover letter should look like it came from the same person on the same day. Use the same font, the same body size, and the same name and contact block at the top. When a recruiter opens both files, they read as a set.

Don't pair a serif resume with a sans-serif letter, or switch sizes between them. The cover letter format guide covers margins, spacing, and the header layout for the letter itself.

Bold, italics, capitals, and color: emphasis rules#

Font choice and size set the baseline. Emphasis decides where the reader's eye goes. Used carefully, it helps a recruiter find your job titles and results in seconds. Used everywhere, it cancels itself out.

Bold#

Reserve bold for your name, section headings, and job titles. If you bold key results inside bullets, limit it to one short phrase per role. When half the page is bold, nothing stands out.

Italics#

Italics work for secondary details such as dates, locations, or a one-line company description. Avoid italics for whole bullets. Long italic passages are harder to read, especially in serif fonts and at small sizes.

All capitals and small caps#

All caps can work for your name and short headings like EXPERIENCE or EDUCATION. Never write full sentences or bullets in capitals. WebAIM notes that bold, italics, all caps, and other unusual styles slow reading when applied to longer text.

Color#

Keep body text black or very dark gray. If you want color, use one muted accent on your name or headings. Make sure it still reads when printed in grayscale. Avoid light gray text, which disappears on many screens and printers.

Underlines#

Skip underlines except for links, and even links can usually appear as plain text. Underlined headings make the tails of letters like g, p, and y collide with the line.

Fonts to avoid on a resume#

Some fonts hurt readability, look unprofessional, or create technical problems. Here is what to avoid and what to use instead.

Are resume fonts ATS-friendly? What really matters#

Many articles warn that the "wrong" font will get your resume rejected by applicant tracking systems. That is mostly a myth. An ATS extracts the characters stored in your file. Whether those characters are drawn in Georgia or Arial doesn't change the text it reads.

The same goes for AI screening tools. They read the extracted text just like an ATS, so the font doesn't matter to them either. The paste test below works for both.

Font-related ATS problems come from a few specific situations instead:

• Text saved as an image. Scanned resumes, screenshots, and some design-tool exports store your words as pictures. The system sees nothing.
• Icon fonts. Phone, email, and location icons can turn into random letters or boxes in the parsed text, sometimes right next to your contact details.
• Unusual symbols as bullets. Arrows, checkmarks, and decorative glyphs can parse as question marks. Standard round bullets or hyphens are safest.
• Broken text encoding in PDFs. Some exports look fine but paste as garbled characters. Letter pairs like "fi" and "fl" are a common cause.
• Headers and footers. Some systems skip a document's header and footer areas, so keep your name and contact details in the main body.

For more on what these systems actually do, read the guides to ATS myths and resume parsing errors.

Accented letters and special characters#

If your name, an employer, or a university has letters such as é, ñ, or ü, make sure your font includes them. All the fonts in the comparison table do. Problems show up mainly with decorative or very new fonts. A missing letter can be silently swapped for a box or a different font. The paste test catches this too.

How to test your resume font in five minutes#

Run this test on the exact file you plan to submit:

1. Open your exported PDF and select all the text.
2. Paste it into a plain text editor such as Notepad or TextEdit in plain-text mode.
3. Check that your name, email, phone number, and every bullet appear as normal, readable text in a sensible order.
4. Look for boxes, question marks, missing letters (especially "fi" and "fl"), or random characters where icons were.
5. Fix any problem in the source document, export again, and repeat.

For a second check, paste the same text into the free resume parser. It shows which fields come out, such as your name, email, phone, and sections. The ATS resume checker flags decorative symbols and layout risks in the same pasted text. The guide to an ATS-friendly resume covers the formatting rules that matter more than font.

How to make sure your font survives export#

A font only helps you if the recruiter sees it. When a reader's computer lacks your font, their software swaps in another one. A layout you fitted to one page can then spill onto a second page with broken alignment.

Send a PDF with embedded fonts#

A PDF can carry the font inside the file. Adobe explains that embedding fonts in a PDF keeps the layout consistent, because the viewer doesn't need a substitute. Most exports from Word, Google Docs, and Pages embed fonts automatically, but it is worth checking.

To check in Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader, open the PDF and go to File, then Document Properties, then the Fonts tab. Each font should say "Embedded" or "Embedded Subset." A font with neither label is not embedded.

If an employer asks for a Word file, use a font installed almost everywhere, such as Arial, Calibri, or Georgia. Word can also embed fonts through the "Embed fonts in the file" setting on Microsoft's Word Options (Save) page. The guide to sending a resume as a PDF or Word document covers when each format fits.

Google Docs, Canva, and other editors#

In Google Docs, Arial, Georgia, Times New Roman, and Verdana are in the font menu by default. For anything else, open the font menu and choose More fonts at the top. Search for the name, such as Calibri, Lato, or Source Sans 3, and add it. If you want one safe Docs pick, use Arial at 11 points.

When you're done, export with File, then Download, then PDF. Avoid sending a link to the live document unless asked, since the recipient's view may differ from yours. The guide to making a resume in Google Docs covers the rest of the setup.

In Canva, pick a plain font from its library rather than a display font. Download your resume as PDF Standard, and leave any option to flatten the PDF turned off. Design tools can place each line in its own text box, which can scramble the reading order. Run the paste test on every Canva export.

Check it on a phone and on paper#

You can't control where your resume gets opened. It might be a phone or a small ATS preview pane. Open your PDF on your phone without zooming and check that your name, job titles, and dates are readable at a glance.

Then print one copy in black and white. Faded gray text, light weights, and thin accent colors often fail one of these two tests.

Before and after: fixing a cramped resume#

Here is a made-up resume that fits on one page but is hard to read, followed by the settings that fix it.

The fix came from editing, not formatting tricks. The four cut bullets freed more space than the 9.5-point type ever did. If you need help deciding which lines to cut, the list of common resume mistakes highlights what usually goes first.

How to change your resume font in Word and Google Docs#

Changing the font in a few places by hand leaves stray inconsistencies, like one bullet in Calibri and the rest in Aptos. Use styles instead, so every element changes at once.

In Microsoft Word#

Select all text and set your body font and size first. Then right-click the Normal style in the Home tab's Styles gallery and choose Modify. Set the font, size, and line spacing there. Do the same for Heading 1 and Heading 2 if your template uses them for section titles.

In Google Docs#

Set the font, size, and spacing on one paragraph of body text. Then open the styles menu, which usually shows "Normal text." Choose the option to update Normal text to match. Repeat for your heading style, and every paragraph using those styles updates together.

Final consistency pass#

Before you export, check these elements against each other:

• Every job title uses the same weight and size.
• Every date uses the same format and alignment.
• Every bullet uses the same symbol and indentation.
• No stray text remains in a different font from copy-and-paste.
• Bold is reserved for your name, headings, and job titles, plus a few key phrases at most.

Resume font checklist and next steps#

Run through this list before you send your next application:

• One font, or two with clearly different jobs
• Body text between 10.5 and 12 points, adjusted for the font's x-height
• Name 16 to 24 points; headings 12 to 14 points; no more than three sizes
• Line spacing 1.0 to 1.2, with extra space before each section
• Margins between 0.5 and 1 inch, equal on all sides
• No Light, Thin, script, or novelty fonts
• No icon fonts or decorative bullet symbols
• Cover letter in the same font and size as the resume
• Exported to PDF with fonts embedded, unless the employer asked for Word
• Plain-text paste test passed with readable, correctly ordered text

Your next steps are simple. Pick one font from the short-answer table and set it through styles. Adjust the size for that font, and fix spacing before you touch the size again. Then export, run the paste test, and check the result with the free resume checker. When nobody notices your font, it is doing its job.