How to Choose Fonts for a Website
A practical, step-by-step process for choosing website fonts that are readable, fit your brand and load quickly.
3 minute read
Free typography tools for the web 82 open-source families
Find the right font. Test it instantly.
Pair it beautifully, preview it on a real layout and copy CSS that works on your website. No account, no download, no cost.
Make your words look intentional
01The collection
Discover fonts worth using
A hand-picked starting point from our open-source catalogue. Your words from the tester above appear in every sample.
Explore all 82 fonts- 01 Make your words look intentional Fraunces
- 02 Make your words look intentional Inter
- 03 Make your words look intentional Playfair Display
- 04 Make your words look intentional Space Grotesk
- 05 Make your words look intentional Lora
- 06 Make your words look intentional JetBrains Mono
- 07 Make your words look intentional Instrument Serif
- 08 Make your words look intentional DM Sans
02Pairings
Pairings with a reason
Every combination comes with a short explanation of why the two typefaces work together.
Open the pairing generator- Heading Playfair Display Body Source Sans 3 Good type is invisible until it is missing Playfair Display's high stroke contrast gives headlines drama, while Source Sans 3's even, humanist texture keeps paragraphs calm. The contrast in classification makes the hierarchy obvious at a glance. Use Playfair Display with Source Sans 3
- Heading Fraunces Body Inter Notes on rhythm, colour and space Fraunces adds warmth and personality to headings; Inter is deliberately neutral and built for screens. One voice speaks, the other stays out of the way. Use Fraunces with Inter
- Heading DM Serif Display Body DM Sans The shape of a confident brand Both come from the DM type system, so proportions and spirit are related. The high-contrast display serif and the low-contrast geometric sans differ enough to separate headings from text. Use DM Serif Display with DM Sans
03The toolkit
Five tools, one workflow
Each tool hands its choices to the next through the address bar, so you can move from discovery to production CSS without starting over.
- 01 Font Explorer Search and filter open-source fonts, preview them with your own words and see every available weight.
- 02 Font Playground Tune size, weight, spacing, line height and colour, then copy production-ready CSS.
- 03 Font Pairing Generator Browse curated heading and body combinations with the reasoning behind each one.
- 04 Website Typography Preview Try a type system on a realistic web page with a modular scale, then export it as CSS variables.
- 05 Font Comparison Set up to four fonts side by side with identical text and measured x-height and width.
04Method
How VirtualFont helps
From a first hunch to a line of CSS, without leaving the browser.
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Find
Filter open-source families by category, variable support and italics, with every font previewed in your own text.
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Test
Adjust size, weight, spacing, line height and colour, with a live contrast check against WCAG guidelines.
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Pair
Start from curated heading and body combinations, then preview them on a realistic page with a modular type scale.
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Use
Copy CSS, an HTML link tag, an @import rule or a WordPress snippet that loads only the weights you chose.
For designers: compare letterforms side by side with measured x-height and width before committing to a typeface.
For developers: export rem-based type scales as CSS custom properties and keep font requests small.
For WordPress sites: get a ready-made wp_enqueue_style snippet for your child theme.
05Reading room
Typography guides
Short, practical reading on the decisions behind good web typography.
All guidesHeading and Body Font Combinations: Best Practices
3 minute read
Serif vs Sans-Serif Fonts: What Actually Matters on Screens
2 minute read
Choosing Readable Font Sizes for the Web
3 minute read