Katagami Text: a free sans serif for long reading

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The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Specifications

	Katagami Text
Weights	100 to 900, variable
Named styles	Thin, ExtraLight, Light, Regular, Medium, SemiBold, Bold, ExtraBold, Black
Glyphs	11,243
Characters	6,580
Units per em	2,048
Cap height	1430 units, 0.698 em
x-height	1020 units, 0.498 em
Scripts drawn or merged	22
OpenType features you can switch	41
File	`KatagamiText[wght].ttf`, 4.5 MB
License	SIL Open Font License 1.1
Version	0.1

Design

The x-height is 0.71 of the cap height.
Every glyph is set 4 percent smaller on the same line height.
Letters are condensed to 0.97 of their ink width, and their stems keep their thickness.
Its spacing is tighter.
The c's terminals sit closer together, the g's tail rises higher, the l is straight and the top of the t is cut at a slant.
The heavy weights are drawn lighter. Weight 700 sits at 640 on the design axis, and weight 800 sits at 760.
Quarter arcs reach 0.59 of the way to their corners. No other member has rounder arcs.

Coverage

Katagami Text has 6,580 characters and covers 22 scripts. Chinese, Japanese and Korean come from the four Katagami CJK companions, which the web stylesheet assigns to this member. The map shows the languages it sets, and the glyphs page shows every character.

Script	Characters
Latin	783
Greek	338
Cyrillic	251
Devanagari	201
Arabic	1,213
Bengali	96
Gurmukhi	80
Gujarati	91

Script	Characters
Odia	91
Tamil	72
Telugu	100
Kannada	91
Malayalam	118
Sinhala	111
Thai	87
Lao	83

Script	Characters
Myanmar	223
Ethiopic	523
Hebrew	134
Armenian	96
Georgian	174
Khmer	146

Web setup

Link the stylesheet, then set the family. Each script is its own file, so a page loads only the scripts it shows.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://katagami.kevinliu.studio/fonts/katagami.css">

body { font-family: "Katagami Text", system-ui, sans-serif; }

You can also download the fonts. KatagamiText[wght].ttf is one variable file with every weight.

OpenType features

Turn each feature on with font-feature-settings. The features page shows each one off and on.

c2sc Small capitals from capitals
calt Contextual alternates
case Case-sensitive forms
cv01 Short-flag one
cv02 Open four
cv03 Open six
cv04 Open nine
cv05 Lower-case L with tail
cv06 Simplified u
cv07 Alternate sharp s
cv08 Upper-case i with serif
cv09 Flat-top three
cv10 Capital G without spur
cv11 Single-story a
cv12 Wide f
cv13 Compact t
cv14 Alternate capital sharp S
cv15 Simplified tabular one
cv16 Lower-case a with tail
dlig Discretionary ligatures
dnom Denominators
frac Fractions
liga Standard ligatures
numr Numerators
ordn Ordinals
pnum Proportional figures
salt Stylistic alternates
sinf Scientific inferiors
smcp Small capitals
ss01 Open digits
ss02 Disambiguation
ss03 Round quotes & commas
ss04 Disambiguation (no slashed zero)
ss05 Circled characters
ss06 Squared characters
ss07 Square punctuation
ss08 Square quotes
subs Subscript
sups Superscript
tnum Tabular figures
zero Slashed zero

Questions

Is Katagami Text free for commercial use?

Katagami Text is free for commercial use. It is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which allows you to use and change it in commercial and non-commercial products. Keep the license with the files when you share them.

Which weights does Katagami Text have?

Katagami Text has every weight from 100 to 900 on one variable axis. Its named styles run from Thin to Black.

Does Katagami Text have italics?

Katagami Text has no italics yet. Version 0.1 is upright, and italics come after hand corrections.

Comparisons

Katagami vs InterKatagami starts from Inter's open-source outlines, and both families are free under the SIL Open Font License. Katagami squares the curves and cuts terminals level. It adds a rounded member, a reading member, a serif and a mono, and it merges 19 more scripts.Katagami vs GeistGeist and Katagami are both free families with a sans and a mono under the SIL Open Font License. Katagami adds a rounded sans, a reading face and a serif, and sets 22 scripts plus Chinese, Japanese and Korean.Katagami vs IBM PlexIBM Plex and Katagami are both free families with a sans, a serif and a mono under the SIL Open Font License.Katagami vs RobotoRoboto is Google's interface typeface. Katagami Sans is a squared sans with four sibling members, and it is free under the SIL Open Font License.Katagami vs SF ProSF Pro is Apple's system typeface, and its license covers designing interfaces for Apple platforms. Katagami is free to use and ship in any product under the SIL Open Font License.Katagami vs HelveticaHelvetica is a commercial typeface licensed from Monotype. Katagami Sans is free under the SIL Open Font License.Katagami Text vs PP MoriPP Mori is a commercial sans. Katagami Text was measured against its proportions, contains none of its outlines, and is free under the SIL Open Font License.Katagami vs Noto SansThe Noto project covers the scripts of Unicode across many fonts, and Noto Sans is its font for Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. Katagami draws its own Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. It merges 19 scripts from the Noto Sans fonts and scales them to Katagami's x-height.

The rest of the family

Katagami SansKatagami Sans is a free variable sans serif for interfaces and display.Katagami RoundKatagami Round is a free rounded sans serif.Katagami SerifKatagami Serif is a free serif font with rectangular serifs.Katagami MonoKatagami Mono is a free monospace font for code.