Amiri Arabic Font Preview
What this font feels like
Classic, balanced, "traditional print" look. Great default for readable Arabic.
Amiri is a classic Arabic typeface inspired by traditional printing and formal text layouts. Its elegant curves and balanced proportions make it perfect for creating sophisticated calligraphy-style designs.
Use Amiri for clean names, poster headlines, and simple wordmarks—especially when legibility matters. The font's timeless aesthetic works beautifully for both digital and print applications.
For best results, paste Arabic text for names or tattoos. Typing English will NOT translate it.
Popular Arabic Phrases
Best For
- •Name signatures (readable + elegant)
- •Longer phrases / quotes
- •Traditional-style logos (short brand names)
Watch-outs
- •Ultra-small sizes without contrast adjustment
- •Very decorative / ornate designs
Recommended Styles to Pair With
Suggested default: Naskh • Size 92–110px • Spacing 2–6
License Note
Licensing varies by font. Check this font's specific license before commercial use. Many versions are available under open-source licenses like OFL, but always verify.
Advertisement
About Amiri
A revival with a specific ancestor
Amiri is not a generic Naskh. It is a careful revival of the typeface used by the Bulaq Press in Cairo — Egypt's first modern printing house, established in the early nineteenth century — whose Naskh cut became the reference point for Arabic printing across the region for over a century. Khaled Hosny's revival, released as free software, reconstructs that design with the extended character coverage and typographic refinement that contemporary work requires.
That lineage is why Amiri looks authoritative in a way that is difficult to pin down. Its proportions are the ones generations of Arabic readers learned to read books in, and it carries the register of print rather than of handwriting.
What it does better than the alternatives
Amiri has the most complete typographic apparatus of any font offered here. Its ligature coverage, contextual alternates, and diacritic positioning are exceptionally thorough, which matters most for vocalised text — Quranic quotation, poetry, teaching material — where marks stack above and below the letters and poor positioning becomes obvious immediately.
It also holds a formal register that the more neutral faces do not. For a book, a certificate, an academic document, or any piece where the text should feel considered and permanent, Amiri delivers that without resorting to a display script.
Settings that work
Amiri is a text face, so let it be one. Use it at reading sizes with generous line height and no added letter spacing. Its stroke contrast is moderate rather than extreme, so it survives print well, but at very small sizes the finer strokes will start to thin — if a design requires Arabic below roughly ten points, Cairo or Scheherazade will hold up better.
For display use, Amiri scales up cleanly and gains elegance rather than losing it, which not every text face does. A short phrase set large in Amiri makes a credible formal title.
Licence and practical notes
Amiri is released under the SIL Open Font License, which permits commercial use, logos, and products without a fee or attribution requirement. What the licence restricts is redistributing the font files themselves — particularly selling them — and it requires modified versions to carry a different name and the same licence. Full terms are on our licenses page.
One practical caution that applies regardless of licence: a permissive font licence says nothing about the words you set. Copyrighted text, trademarked names, and religious passages carry their own considerations, and those are what actually generate disputes.
Amiri or one of the alternatives?
Against Scheherazade, the decision is register and size. Both are Naskh text faces of high quality; Amiri is more formal and more thoroughly equipped for vocalised text, Scheherazade is slightly wider and holds legibility better as sizes drop. For a book or a certificate, Amiri. For teaching material or anything a learner will read, Scheherazade.
Against Cairo, the decision is what the piece should sound like. Cairo is neutral and engineered for screens; Amiri carries the voice of print and tradition. If the design is an interface, choose Cairo. If it is a document meant to feel considered, choose Amiri — and if it is a wordmark rather than text at all, neither is right, and Reem Kufi is where to look.
Amiri FAQ
❋Related Fonts
Browse All Styles →
Explore Kufi, Naskh, Thuluth, and more calligraphy styles.
Browse All Fonts →
Compare readability, style tags, and licensing notes.