Thai font · COMMERCIAL

AngsanaUPC

อังสนายูพีซี

By Narongsak Chaiwong

Typography & Licensing Specialist, ThaiGraph · July 16, 2026 · Updated August 22, 2026

Information verified as of August 2026

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What AngsanaUPC is

AngsanaUPC (อังสนายูพีซี) is the looped Thai serif that Microsoft bundles with Windows and Office. Microsoft’s typography documentation describes it in one line: “Angsana UPC is a Thai font designed by Unity Progress and offered under license from Microsoft.” It ships in four styles — AngsanaUPC, AngsanaUPC Bold, AngsanaUPC Italic and AngsanaUPC Bold Italic — and covers Thai and Latin, with code pages 1874 Thai and 1252 Latin.

One thing to settle before anything else. If the font your document actually names is the New cut rather than the UPC cut, the page you want is Angsana New; this page is about the UPC cut only. The distinction matters less than most people fear, and the next section explains exactly why.

AngsanaUPC is rarely a font anyone chose. It arrived with the operating system and got written into templates that outlived the machines they were made on. That makes it a compatibility face first: when a twenty-year-old Thai document opens and looks right, a UPC family is usually the reason. The rest of that family sits in the Windows and Office Thai font set.

AngsanaUPC and the New cut are the same font data

On current Windows they are not two fonts. They are one set of outlines published under two family names inside a single file. Microsoft’s own Windows 11 font list gives all four AngsanaUPC styles and all four New-cut styles the same file name, Angsana.ttc, at the same version number. Nothing in Windows ships an AngsanaUPC that the other name does not also address.

We opened the file to check rather than take that on trust. Angsana.ttc on Windows 11 (font revision 5.06) is a TrueType Collection of eight faces, four under each family name. For every matching style, the two faces point at the identical byte ranges for the glyph outlines (glyf, loca), the advance widths (hmtx), the character map (cmap), the vertical metrics (hhea, OS/2) and the OpenType layout tables (GSUB, GPOS, GDEF). The only tables that differ are name — which holds the family name — and the modified timestamp in head. Both carry 4096 units per em, 362 glyphs, and an ascender of 3780 against a descender of −980 in Regular.

That matches what Microsoft’s own people said long before we measured it. In August 2007, Microsoft internationalization engineer Michael S. Kaplan listed “Angsana New ≈ Angsana UPC” among the duplicate families in Windows and wrote: “The only difference I can see between the UPC and the New versions is the name.”

So the practical answer to “which one do I install” is that you cannot install one without the other. Enabling the Thai Supplemental Fonts optional feature delivers Angsana.ttc, and both names appear in your font menu together. Picking between them in a font menu changes the name recorded in the file and nothing about the rendering.

Two honest limits on that finding. It describes the version of the file Windows ships today, not the 2.20 version that went out with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 — we have not inspected those binaries and make no claim about them. And it says nothing about third-party UPC files with the same names, which we have no way to audit.

What “UPC” stands for

Microsoft’s documentation names the designer as Unity Progress, and its page for the sans counterpart says the design work was done by “Unity Progress Corp” in 1992 — the initials that the UPC suffix matches. Kaplan’s 2007 post gives the licensor’s name in a third form, “Unity Progress Co., Ltd.”

What we will not do is present the expansion as documented fact. No Microsoft page we could find writes the abbreviation out in full. The reading is strong, the company name is right there in Microsoft’s own text, and every UPC-suffixed Thai family in Windows carries the same 1992 Unity Progress copyright — but it is a reading, not a quotation, and this site marks the difference.

The suffix is a family marker, not a technical designation. It appears across the whole Microsoft Thai set: BrowalliaUPC, KodchiangUPC, DilleniaUPC, EucrosiaUPC, FreesiaUPC, IrisUPC, JasmineUPC and LilyUPC all belong to it.

Every AngsanaUPC style

Microsoft lists four styles built on two real weights — Regular and Bold — each with a slanted companion. There is no Light, no Medium, no Black, and no variable-font version.

The PostScript names are worth knowing, because they are what a PDF names when it reports an embedded or missing font. If a print house tells you a file wants AngsanaUPC-Bold, that is the Bold style of this family and nothing else.

Note that AngsanaUPC is one of only two UPC families packaged as a collection. Microsoft’s Windows 11 list ships DilleniaUPC as Upcdl.ttf, EucrosiaUPC as Upcel.ttf, FreesiaUPC as Upcfl.ttf, IrisUPC as Upcil.ttf, JasmineUPC as Upcjl.ttf, KodchiangUPC as Upckl.ttf and LilyUPC as Upcll.ttf — one file per style, the old naming scheme. Angsana and Browallia are the exceptions.

Thai stacks vowels and tone marks above and below the line, so a Thai document set in this family generally needs a larger point size than a Latin document would for the same reading comfort. Test at real size rather than inheriting values from an English template — the font tester will show you the difference against your own copy.

Is AngsanaUPC free?

It is free in the sense that it is covered by the Windows or Office licence you already hold. It is not free in the open-licence sense, and there is nothing to buy. Microsoft’s Download row for this font reads, in full: “N/A – Exclusively included with Microsoft products and services where applicable.”

Everyday commercial work on a licensed machine is fine — contracts, reports, book layouts, PDF export. What the bundled licence does not cover is redistributing the font files, embedding the font in non-Microsoft software, and self-hosting it as a webfont. Those three need separate terms through the enterprise licensing route Microsoft links from its documentation.

Files named Angsana.ttc or angsau.ttf circulating on aggregator sites were extracted from Windows installations. Microsoft has never sold this font as a standalone download, so there is no licence behind those copies. Our Thai font licensing guide sets out how bundled system fonts differ from OFL faces.

How to get AngsanaUPC without paying for it

There is no price and no purchase. On Windows 10 and 11 the font arrives through an optional feature called Thai Supplemental Fonts, which installs fourteen Thai families in one action — AngsanaUPC among them.

Microsoft moved these families out of the default install to reduce the operating system footprint, improve performance and optimize disk space usage. After a fresh install or an upgrade, in Microsoft’s words, “optional fonts aren’t enabled by default” — which is the actual cause of “Windows 11 has no AngsanaUPC”. Microsoft also states that the removal is a permanent change in behaviour that will remain in future releases, so waiting for it to come back is not a plan.

Two routes, both from Microsoft’s documentation:

• Optional features. Run ms-settings:optionalfeatures, choose View features next to Add an optional feature, tick Thai Supplemental Fonts, then Next and Add. On Windows 10 the pane is System → Optional features and the button is + Add a feature.
• Add Thai as a language. Run ms-settings:regionlanguage and add Thai under Preferred languages, selecting the language features you want. This brings the fonts plus full Thai language support.

Both routes pull the files through Windows Update, so the device has to be online. Where an organisation blocks Windows Update, the optional feature will not install and needs either an exception or a Features on Demand deployment.

In Office, the family is also on Microsoft’s cloud fonts list, which is why a document can render correctly in a current Office app on a machine where the font is not installed locally.

What happens when AngsanaUPC is substituted

Swapping it for the New cut on a current Windows machine does nothing at all — same outlines, same widths, same line metrics, as measured above. Swapping it for a genuinely different font is what damages a layout.

Microsoft is blunt about the second case: “In most cases, font substitution causes the text to flow differently. Line breaks, column breaks, page breaks, line spacing, and hyphenation will likely change, even if the substitute font is similar to the missing font.” When a font is neither installed nor embedded, Windows supplies a default substitute — you do not get to approve it, and you often do not get told.

This is why the same Thai document can look right in the office and wrong at the print house. The failure is not the printer and not the two UPC and New names; it is the file landing on a machine where neither is present, most often a Mac, a phone, or a Linux print server. Three practical consequences:

• A document that names AngsanaUPC keeps naming it forever. The file stores a typeface name, not the typeface. Renaming the font in your font menu does not change what an old document asks for.
• Page counts move. Reflowed line breaks cascade, so a substituted Thai document can gain or lose pages, which matters for anything with numbered clauses or a fixed form.
• Embedding is the fix Microsoft names. Its Office guidance is to embed fonts to preserve the layout when sharing with people on other versions. That preserves the file; it does not give the recipient a licence to use the font in their own work.

If the document has to survive leaving Windows, the durable answer is to set it in an open-licensed Thai serif from the start rather than to rely on a system font being present.

Why you still have UPC files in 2026

Because Windows still ships them, Office still lists them, and Thai document templates written in the 1990s are still in service. All three are true at once, and each produces a different kind of user.

• The optional-feature route. AngsanaUPC is one of the fourteen families in the current Thai Supplemental Fonts feature on Windows 10 and 11. Anyone who has ever added Thai to a Windows machine has it.
• Office. The family appears on Microsoft’s cloud fonts list for Office applications.
• Inherited documents. Microsoft’s product table for this font starts at Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 at font version 2.20. Government forms, university templates and corporate letterheads authored in that era still specify the UPC name, and every copy made since has carried it forward.

None of that makes it a good choice for new design work. It makes it the safe choice for old documents, which is a different job.

Name variants and spellings

These all refer to the same typeface:

• AngsanaUPC — the family name Microsoft publishes, written as one word
• Angsana UPC — the spaced form; Microsoft itself uses it in the opening line of its own page
• angsanaupc — the lower-case form people type into a search box
• อังสนายูพีซี — the Thai transliteration of the full name
• อังสนา — the Thai form of Angsana alone; on a Windows machine it will mean this family or its New sibling
• AngsanaUPC-Bold, AngsanaUPC-Italic, AngsanaUPC-BoldItalic — the PostScript names, as reported by PDF tools and prepress software

One correction worth stating plainly. There is no font called “Angsana New UPC”. Microsoft publishes two separate family names, and neither combines the two suffixes. Anyone searching that phrase is looking at a font menu that lists both names next to each other and has read them as one. Either name will render the same text identically on a current Windows machine.

Free alternatives to AngsanaUPC

If the file has to live on the web, go to a supplier, or open on a Mac, start from an open-licensed Thai serif instead of trying to make a bundled system font portable.

• Noto Serif Thai — the Thai serif from the Noto project under the SIL Open Font License, free for commercial use and free to embed as a webfont. The closest match for the document-body role.
• TH Sarabun PSK — the family Thai government documents are built around. When the destination is a Thai public agency, it fits the expected standard better than any Microsoft face.
• Pridi — an OFL Thai serif with a more contemporary voice, for editorial work that should not read as an official memo.
• Kinnari — the Thai serif from the free font sets long used on Linux and in open-source document workflows.
• The full free Thai font list — every family with its licence checked individually.

One caveat that applies to all four. None is a metric-compatible twin. Substituting any of them into a file already laid out in AngsanaUPC will move the line breaks, for exactly the reason Microsoft gives above. Choose the replacement before the layout is built, not after. Compare them against your own text in the font tester, or browse Thai serif fonts and the wider fonts directory.

Licensing

AngsanaUPC is proprietary. The copyright line reads ”© 1992 Unity Progress. Portions © 2004 The Monotype Corporation. Portions © 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.” Usage rights attach to the Windows or Office licence on the machine. There is no standalone sale, no public webfont licence, and no redistribution right.

A small documentation detail is worth noting for anyone chasing the vendor of record: Microsoft’s AngsanaUPC page leaves the Font vendor row blank, while its page for the New cut fills the same row in as “Microsoft Corp.” The copyright lines on the two pages are identical, so we read the blank as an omission rather than a different rights position — but we are reading, and we say so.

Organisations that need more than the bundled scope — embedding in shipped software, server installation, or webfont use — have to negotiate through the enterprise route Microsoft links from the AngsanaUPC documentation. For work that should not involve licence negotiation at all, Noto Serif Thai and Pridi deliver Thai serif character under the SIL Open Font License with no conditions attached. The Thai typography guide covers how the looped Thai serif tradition these faces belong to differs from the loopless families now dominant in Thai branding.

Information verified as of August 2026