Microsoft Announces a New Default Font, Aptos

Microsoft announced today that it is replacing its current default font, Calibri, with a more modern successor called Aptos.

“For 15 years, our beloved Calibri was Microsoft’s default font and crown keeper of office communications, but our relationship has come to a natural end,” Microsoft principal program manager Si Daniels writes in the announcement post. ” We changed. The technology we use every day has changed. And so, our search for the perfect font for higher-resolution screens began. The font needed to have sharpness, uniformity, and be great for display type. It was exciting at times, but also intimidating.”

Microsoft started its search for a new font over two years ago when it commissioned five new fonts—Bierstadt, Grandview, Seaford, Skeena, and Tenorite—with the goal of selecting a new font for Microsoft 365. It added these fonts to the drop-down font picker in the Microsoft Office apps, listened to feedback, and chose the one that resonated most. And that font was … Bierstadt. Which Microsoft has renamed to Aptos for some reason. (Maybe because “Bierstadt” means “beer town”.)

Aptos will start appearing as the default font in the primary Office apps—Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Excel—today and will roll out to be the default for all customers in the coming months. Aptos is what’s called a sans serif font, and as that term suggests, it comes “sans serif,” or without decorative lines or tapers. It is modern, easily readable, and has simple letterforms and even strokes.

And for you fans of the other four contenders, no worries: Microsoft is keeping Grandview, Seaford, Skeena, and Tenorite in the font picker, as is Calibri, which will be pinned to the top near its predecessors, Times New Roman and Arial.

Microsoft also hinted at some future design changes.

“Aptos is part of a broader wave of features coming to Microsoft 365,” Daniel added. “We’re pushing to make the software more expressive and inclusive. There’s a newly designed font picker experience, along with new themes, colors, and backgrounds. These updates signify our devotion to those who use M365 the same way a mechanic does a toolbox, or an artist does a paintbrush.”