How to Add Different Fonts to Gmail

By Erin Martise

Updated May 25, 2023

Using fonts in Gmail allows you to be more creative with your email.
i Creatas Images/Creatas/Getty Images

How to Add Different Fonts to Gmail

When sending a message using Gmail, you may want to use different fonts to give your message a more personal touch. Gmail allows you to select from several basic fonts while you're composing your message. If you want to use a fancier font that's not on Gmail's list, you'll have to format your text in another application and then cut and paste it into Gmail. However, if the recipient doesn't have the font installed on his computer, the text will revert to a basic format when he opens the message.

Default fonts are automatically set in Gmail for users, but these fonts can be changed on a personalized basis when wanting to email clients or coworkers using different styles. Custom fonts can also be added into Gmail for these font style reasons. A common, basic font used in most Gmail accounts is Arial, which is also very common within Google Fonts and Google Docs. Other common fonts used for Gmail include roboto, tahoma, calibri, verdana, sans serif fonts and typefaces, helvetica, georgia, times new roman, and many others that allow for customization of your Gmail look and feel.

Gmail fonts also allow for stylesheet changes, like to underline and bold words, letters, headers and footers, and when updating your fonts these fonts will save changes for every new email you compose. Gmail font changes should be similar among android, windows, iphone, Apple mail, Chrome, ios, and mac users. Web-safe fonts will be needed for the font changes, and you will need to look into font stack, font settings, font files, fallback fonts, text styles, font-faces, embed fonts, functionality of fonts, font names, and the html or css behind some font changes. Google allows for certain templates for Gmail to be built into the system using default fonts. When forming a new message or email after the font additions, look into the template to see if the new change font is appearing.

Built-in Fonts

Log in to your Gmail account and click the "Compose" button to begin a new email message.

Click the button with an underlined "A" at the bottom of the message window.

Click the name of the current font to display the list of other available fonts. By default, Gmail uses the "Sans Serif" font, but you can also select from ten other common fonts. Click one of the fonts to use it.

Other Fonts

Open a word processing application such as Microsoft Word, OpenOffice or LibreOffice. The application must use rich text formatting -- basic text editors such as Notepad and WordPad won't suffice.

Compose all or part of your email message in the word processor and then format the text with the font of your choice.

Log in to your Gmail account and click the "Compose" button to begin a new email message.

Copy the formatted text from the word processor and then paste it into the body of your Gmail message. The text will retain the original font. If you place your cursor on the same line as the newly inserted text, you can begin adding to your message and your new text will maintain the same font.

Click "Send" once the message is ready. When the recipient gets the email, the text will retain the new font as long as the font is present on the recipient's computer. Otherwise, the recipient's email program will replace the font with a generic font.

×