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Angsana New

อังสนานิว

By Narongsak Chaiwong

Typography & Licensing Specialist, ThaiGraph · April 16, 2026

Information verified as of April 2026

What Angsana New is

Angsana New is a looped Thai serif bundled with Microsoft Windows and Office since the late 1990s, developed with Thai type foundry DB Thai Text as the default Thai serif for Microsoft’s Thai language support. It ships in Regular, Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic.

Paired with Cordia New as the “default sans”, Angsana New has been the serif half of Thai business typography for well over two decades. Any formal Thai document written in Microsoft Word in the 2000s or 2010s is statistically likely to be set in Angsana New at 16pt.

The font descends from an earlier Angsana UPC family developed by Unity Progress, updated for ClearType rendering and Unicode support when it shipped as Angsana New. Its role in Thai office typography is more ubiquitous than any single open-licensed serif today.

Character design and tone

Angsana New uses moderate stroke contrast, fully looped consonants with tight circular heads, and traditional bracketed terminals inherited from pre-digital Thai metal type. The loops on ก, ถ, ภ are small tight circles, drawn more compactly than the oval loops of contemporary faces like Niramit.

Stroke contrast is moderate — roughly 1:2 between thin and thick strokes — which gives the face readable serif texture at body sizes. Terminals are sharply cut with slight brackets, a treatment borrowed from Thai linotype conventions. At display sizes, the compactness and the dated terminal detailing become visible and the font reads as slightly old-fashioned.

Tone marks and vowel signs sit close to the baseline and can crowd at the standard Word line-height settings — one of the reasons Thai documents in Angsana New are often set at 16pt rather than 11-12pt. The Latin companion is a condensed Times-adjacent serif that prioritises space efficiency over elegance.

Weights and availability

Angsana New ships in four cuts — Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold Italic — bundled with Windows and Office. There is no standalone Microsoft download. The font arrives as part of the Windows Thai language pack or Office installation.

For web use, Angsana New is not on Google Fonts or any open CDN. CSS font-family: 'Angsana New', serif; can reference it as a fallback for Thai users on Windows, but it should not be the primary web font.

Best use cases

Angsana New is the default for formal Thai business and legal documents generated on Windows. Strong briefs:

• Formal Thai business correspondence in Microsoft Word (contracts, memos, official letters)
• Legal documents and government forms that still expect Thai serif body text
• Internal corporate templates that must maintain traditional Thai office conventions
• Academic papers in Thai universities that mandate specific body-text conventions

Where it doesn’t fit: web design (use Noto Serif Thai, Pridi, or Niramit), branded print and editorial publishing, and any project where the typography is a design decision rather than an office convention.

Pairings

Angsana New pairs within Microsoft’s Thai bundle, where it serves as the serif partner to Cordia New’s sans. Three pairings:

• Cordia New — the bundled looped Thai sans, used as UI/subhead companion
• Browallia New — sans alternative from the same DB Thai Text bundle
• Times New Roman — Latin serif partner for Thai-English business documents

Licensing

Angsana New is proprietary Microsoft software, bundled with Windows and Office and licensed only for use on systems with valid Microsoft licences. It cannot be redistributed, web-hosted, or embedded in non-Microsoft products without explicit licensing from Microsoft. For open-licensed alternatives with similar looped Thai serif character, use Noto Serif Thai or Pridi. Verify licence terms at the Microsoft Typography documentation.

Information verified as of April 2026