Roboto

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Specification

Designer

Christian Robertson, ParaType, Font Bureau

Released

2011

Category

Sans-serif

License

OFL-1.1

Commercial use

Allowed

Good for

User interfaces, Body text, Android apps, Dashboards

Weights

100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900

Styles

Normal, Italic

Variable

Yes

Glyphs

1,326

Languages

Latin, Latin Extended, Türkçe, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Greek, Vietnamese

Download size

597 KB

Source

github.com/googlefonts/roboto-3-classic

Questions

Is Roboto free for commercial use?

Yes. Roboto is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which allows commercial use with no fee and no attribution requirement. You can use it in client work, in products you sell, on the web and in print. The one thing you may not do is sell the font file on its own. The licence is inside the download.

Can I use Roboto in a logo?

Yes. The licence covers the font software, not the artwork you make with it, so a logo set in Roboto belongs to you — including if you later register it as a trademark. You do not need permission and you do not owe anything to Christian Robertson, ParaType, Font Bureau. What the licence stops you doing is redistributing the font file itself as a product.

How do I install Roboto?

Download the zip and unzip it. On a Mac, select the 2 font files inside and open them, then press Install Font. On Windows, select them, right-click and choose Install. Restart any application that was already open before it will show up. Roboto is a variable font: those files carry all 9 weights at once. Some older software — Word, Canva, and Photoshop before 2018 — reads only the one weight the file defaults to, and for Roboto that is the regular weight. If that happens, use the Static download on this page instead: it has 54 ordinary files, one per weight, and works everywhere.

Does Roboto support Turkish?

Yes. Roboto includes the characters Türkçe needs that plain Latin does not — the dotless ı, the dotted İ, and ğ, ş, ü, ö and ç in both cases. This was checked against the font file itself, not assumed from the fact that it covers Latin.

What languages does Roboto support?

Roboto covers Latin, Latin Extended, Turkish, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Greek and Vietnamese, across 1,326 glyphs. Anything outside those alphabets is not included — the character map further up this page shows exactly what you get.

Does Roboto support Cyrillic?

Yes. Roboto includes the Cyrillic alphabet, and the Cyrillic Extended set as well, which adds the letters for languages beyond Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Serbian. This was read from the font file itself. The complete WOFF2 and the zip both carry it; only the Latin-only web file leaves it out.

What weights does Roboto come in?

Roboto comes in 9 weights: Thin (100), Extra Light (200), Light (300), Regular (400), Medium (500), Semi Bold (600), Bold (700), Extra Bold (800) and Black (900). It is a variable font, so every one of them is in a single file and you can also set any weight in between.

Is there a smaller, Latin-only version of Roboto?

Yes — the "WOFF2 · Latin only" button on this page. It is 126 KB against 251 KB for the complete file, 50% smaller, with every weight the family has still in it. It covers Latin and Latin Extended, which is everything a page in English, Turkish or a western European language sets — Türkçe included, since ı, İ, ğ and ş all live in that range. Take the complete file instead if you set Cyrillic, Greek or any alphabet outside Latin.

Where can I download Roboto as WOFF2?

From the WOFF2 button on this page — the file is roboto.woff2, and it is about 251 KB. It is the complete font repacked for the web rather than a cut-down copy: the same glyphs, the same spacing and the same hinting as the .ttf in the download, roughly 60% smaller. Every browser still receiving updates reads WOFF2, so it is the only web format most sites need. Google Fonts does not offer this file for download at all — it serves WOFF2 from its own servers and gives you .ttf if you ask for the family.

Do I need to download Roboto Condensed separately?

Not if your software reads variable fonts. The Roboto file here carries a width axis running from 100 percent down to 75 percent alongside its weight axis, and 75 percent is what used to ship as the separate Roboto Condensed family. In Figma, Illustrator, InDesign or on the web you set the width you want and the file draws it. In Word, Canva or Photoshop before 2018 you will only get the standard width, because those read one fixed instance and ignore the axes — there the separate Condensed family is still the way to get it.