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Lookalike Fonts

From Jacci Howard Bear,
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Find font aliases and clones

Which fonts look most like Helvetica? What's a good substitute if you can't find Staccato? Many times companies will produce their own versions of another font. Occasionally the names will be similar such as Lithos and Lithographic. But often the names are totally dissimilar as in Perpetua and Lapidary 333. This list will help you find many of these lookalike fonts, font aliases, clones, and close-match fonts. It's not a comprehensive list by any means, but it is a start and encompasses typefaces from many well-known sources including Monotype, Bitstream, Adobe, Corel, and Linotype AG.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

The font pairs in this list were compiled from a variety of online and offline sources. In most cases the font pairs are near-identical in appearance but in some cases the similarities are more in style and the fonts may not be true clones or lookalikes. There are probably a few errors and definitely omissions. Please report errors and suggest additions to the lookalike fonts list using the Errors & Omissions Form.

A typical entry for a pair of lookalike fonts appears as:
Aachen (LS)
   Aardvark

Once you find the name of a possible substitute, the task of locating the lookalike fonts begins. If the font name includes the source (see list below) then you can start your search at that foundry. Corel fonts can be found with many of their products. Some companies, such as URW, provide their fonts to other vendors to include with their products. You can often find the font you need by seeing what came with software you already own. Other resources for finding specific fonts are found in our Find a Font section.

Where known, the typeface origin is given in parentheses. See the table below. These are not necessarily the same abbreviations included in the actual font name although many fonts, such as Bitstream, do carry the BT as part of the font name.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

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Font Source Abbreviations

A Adobe Systems Incorporated
BAG H. Berthold AG
BT Bitstream, Inc.
CC Corel Corporation
CW CompuWorks
DTC Digital Type Company
ELF Elfring Soft Fonts
IC Image Club Graphics
ITC International Typeface Corporation
LS Letraset or Esselte Letraset
LAG Linotype AG and/or its subsidiaries
MT AGFA/Monotype
URW URW++ Design & Development GmbH
VG Visual Graph
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