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Cordia New

คอร์เดียนิว

By Narongsak Chaiwong

Typography & Licensing Specialist, ThaiGraph · April 16, 2026

Information verified as of April 2026

What Cordia New is

Cordia New is a looped Thai sans-serif bundled with Microsoft Windows since the late 1990s, developed with Thai type foundry DB Thai Text (Unity Progress) as the default Thai UI and document font on Windows systems. It ships in Regular, Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic cuts.

For an entire generation of Thai computer users, Cordia New was the default Thai typeface — the font every Microsoft Word document and Outlook email opened to. Its successor status to the earlier Cordia UPC makes it part of Microsoft’s Thai typographic infrastructure from Windows 98 onwards.

Cordia New is not designed — it is installed. Its ubiquity on Windows, and later in Office for Mac, turned it into the de facto Thai sans-serif for two decades. Even today, Thai office workers default to Cordia New or its serif sibling Angsana New when typing business documents.

Character design and tone

Cordia New uses looped consonants, a compact x-height, and a slightly condensed silhouette that reads efficiently at the 12-14pt range common in Windows applications. The loops on ก, ถ, ภ are tightly drawn circles, more mechanical than the humanist ovals of modern faces like Niramit.

Stroke weight is mostly monolinear with very subtle modulation. The design shows its age in the terminal treatment — hard right-angle cuts that read as “digitised from metal type” rather than natively drawn for screen. At bold weight, letterforms thicken fairly aggressively, sometimes crowding the loops on ก and ถ.

Tone marks and vowel signs sit close to the baseline, which keeps line heights compact but can cause collision with ascenders on ป, ฝ, ฟ at tight leading. The Latin companion is a condensed serif-adjacent sans without significant personality — a workmanlike Latin drawn to coexist with the Thai, not to lead the layout.

Weights and availability

Cordia New ships in four cuts — Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold Italic — bundled with Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office on Windows and Mac. There is no standalone download from Microsoft; the font arrives as part of the OS or Office installation.

For web use, Cordia New is not available through Google Fonts or any free web-font CDN. Sites targeting Thai users who have the font locally can reference it via CSS font-family: 'Cordia New', sans-serif; as a fallback, but it should never be the sole listed family.

Best use cases

Cordia New earns its keep in Windows-native Thai business workflows — it is the expected default, not an active choice. Strong briefs:

• Thai business documents in Microsoft Word where the reader will print or PDF
• Internal corporate templates that must match existing Thai document conventions
• Thai email signatures and correspondence on Outlook Windows
• Legacy templates and forms that originated as Word files

Where it doesn’t fit: modern web design (use Sarabun, Noto Sans Thai, or Kanit), branded print, any publication that will be distributed beyond Thailand, and any project where the typography is a design decision rather than a default.

Pairings

Cordia New pairs within Microsoft’s Thai bundle — with Angsana New, Browallia New, and Dillenia UPC. Three pairings:

• Angsana New — the looped serif sibling from the same bundle, for editorial documents
• Browallia New — wider sans sibling for subheading contrast in office documents
• Calibri — the modern Latin default on Office, though rhythm mismatch is noticeable

Licensing

Cordia 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 character, use Sarabun or Noto Sans Thai Looped. Verify licence terms at the Microsoft Typography documentation.

Information verified as of April 2026