--- layout: default --- {% capture url_root %}{% if site.safe == false %}/{% else %}/inter/{% endif %}{% endcapture %}{% for file in site.static_files %}{% assign _path = file.path | remove_first: "/inter" %}{% if _path == "/index.css" %}{% assign index_css_v = file.modified_time | date: "%Y%m%d%H%M%S" %}{% elsif _path == "/index-var.css" %}{% assign index_var_css_v = file.modified_time | date: "%Y%m%d%H%M%S" %}{% elsif _path == "/index-var.js" %}{% assign index_var_js_v = file.modified_time | date: "%Y%m%d%H%M%S" %}{% endif %}{% endfor %}
Inter UI is a typeface specially designed for user interfaces with focus on high legibility of small-to-medium sized text on computer screens.
The family features a tall x-height to aid in readability of mixed-case and lower-case text. Several OpenType features are provided as well, like contextual alternates that adjusts punctuation depending on the shape of surrounding glyphs, slashed zero for when you need to disambiguate "0" from "o", tabular numbers, etc.
Using the font is as easy as download & installing locally on your computer.
You're free to bundle copies of Inter UI with your software, even if it's commercial and you charge money for your software. Inter UI can also be used on the web by either hosting the font files yourself or by including this CSS:
@import url('https://rsms.me/inter/inter-ui.css'); html { font-family: 'Inter UI', sans-serif; } @supports (font-variation-settings: normal) { html { font-family: 'Inter UI var alt', sans-serif; } }
Size dp = spacing em
There's of course no absolute right or wrong when it comes to expressing yourself with typography, but Inter UI Dynamic Metrics provides guidelines for good typography. You simply provide the optical font size, and the tracking and leading is calculated for you to produce the best results.
Inter UI is a free and open source font family.
You are free to use this font in almost any way imaginable.
Refer to the SIL Open Font License 1.1 for exact details on what the conditions and restrictions are.
Inter UI is offered as both traditional constant font files (one per style, e.g. Bold Italic, Medium, etc.) as well as a Variable Font file which contains all styles in a much smaller file size. Additionally, a variable font is ...variable! You can mix and match weight and italic angle as you please, forming theoretically infinite variations.
Variable fonts is a new technology and support is somewhat in flux at the time of writing this (fall 2018.) This test can be used to discover what a web browser is capable of.
Inter UI comes with many OpenType features that can be used to tailor functionality and aesthetics to your specific needs. Some of these features can be combined to form a great number of alternative variations.
calt
This feature is enabled by default and causes certain characters to adjust themselves or be replaced depending on the surrounding context.
There are many more contextual alternates.
tnum
Fixed-width numbers are useful for tabular data, where comparing columns across rows is desired.
numr
dnom
sups
subs
frac
This feature is contextually sensitive and will convert "words" of numbers separated by forward slash into proper fractions. This feature is dynamic and allows for any fractions. Note that the digits used for fractions are custom-made for their small size, and are even made separately from the slightly larger Superscript and Subscript numbers.
case
Switches out some glyphs to work better with capital letters and numbers.
ss01
An alternate style of digits. Note that individual digit styles can be cherry-picked using the cvXX features.
ss02
Alternate glyph set that increases visual difference between similar-looking characters.
dlig
zero
cvXX
Allows cherry-picking alternate characters.
cpsp
Slightly increases letter spacing for increased legibility of capital letters. Note: It's usually better to set letter-spacing (aka tracking) manually instead of using this feature. It's here mainly for completeness.
Additional features, not highlighted above:
locl
,
aalt
,
ccmp
,
ordn
and
salt
,
Inter UI started out in late 2016 as an experiment to build a perfectly pixel-fitting font at a specific small size (11px.) The idea was that by crafting a font in a particular way, with a particular coordinate system (Units Per EM), and for a particular target rasterization size (11), it would be possible to get the best of both sharpness and readability.
However after a few months of using an early version of Inter UI, it dawned on everyone exposed to the test that this approach had some serious real-world problems. Most notably that it was really hard to read longer text. Because of the pixel-aligning nature of that approach, the font took an almost mono-spaced appearance, making it really easy to read numbers, punctuation and very short words, but eye-straining to read anything longer.
The project was rebooted with a different approach, sticking with the specific UPM, but crafting glyphs and kerning in a way that made for more variation in the rhythm and smoother vertical and horizontal stems. As Inter UI was being developed, it was tested on an internal version of Figma—where the author of Inter UI works as a designer—and slowly improved upon based on experience and feedback.
font-feature-settings. In Figma you can access features via the Advanced Typography panel. In Illustrator, Photoshop and friends, you can access features via the Characters and OpenType panels. Sketch doesn't provide a UI for configuring font features, but there's a workaround using macOS's native font UI.
https://rsms.me/inter/inter-ui.cssand associated font files very reliable and fast throughout the world.