Thai font \u00b7 OFL

Sarabun

สารบัญ

By Narongsak Chaiwong

Typography & Licensing Specialist, ThaiGraph · April 16, 2026

Information verified as of April 2026

What Sarabun is

Sarabun is a looped humanist Thai sans-serif designed by Suppakit Chalermlarp that evolved from TH Sarabun New into the de facto standard for Thai government documents, public-sector branding, and long-form reading on screen. It ships in eight weights with matching italics and covers Thai, Latin, and Vietnamese glyphs. The Google Fonts release in 2013 pushed its reach far beyond Thailand’s civil service.

The font sits in the same family tree as TH Sarabun PSK, the original national font released by the Ministry of ICT and SIPA in 2010 as part of the 13-font royal-gift collection. Suppakit redrew the typeface for screen and web use, tightened the spacing, and added a broader weight range while keeping the familiar looped consonant heads that Thai readers trust for body text.

In practice, if you are reading a Thai PDF from a ministry, a university, a hospital or a Thai airline boarding pass, you are most likely reading Sarabun or one of its direct siblings. That ubiquity makes it the safest default when a Thai designer needs a font that simply disappears into the page.

Character design and tone

Sarabun uses a generous x-height, low stroke contrast, and clearly drawn loops on consonants like ก, ถ and ภ, which keeps the typeface readable at 10-12pt on low-resolution laser output. The loop terminals are slightly ovoid rather than perfectly circular, which gives a softer reading rhythm than older bureaucratic faces.

Stroke weights are nearly monolinear, with subtle tapering where the pen would naturally lift. Vowel marks (สระอี, สระอา) and tone marks (ไม้เอก, ไม้โท) sit at a conservative distance above the base line — far enough to avoid collision with ascenders like ป and ฝ, close enough to track with the word. Thai numerals are full-height and match the cap height of the Latin.

The Latin companion is an unassuming humanist sans in the lineage of PT Sans, with open apertures and a two-storey a. It pairs cleanly with the Thai rather than competing with it, which is why Sarabun is so often used for bilingual forms.

Weights and availability

Sarabun ships in eight weights from Thin to ExtraBold with matching italics, making it one of the most flexible free Thai type systems currently in distribution. It is available on Google Fonts, on f0nt.com in its original TH Sarabun form, and as a self-hosted web font from many Thai hosting providers.

Subsetting is straightforward: the Thai subset weighs roughly 35-50KB per weight in WOFF2 format, so a four-weight deployment fits comfortably under 250KB before Brotli compression. For government use, TH Sarabun New (the non-Google original) remains the canonical file for Word and PDF workflows.

Best use cases

Sarabun earns its keep on long Thai text blocks where neutrality and screen readability matter more than personality. Strong briefs include:

• Government and NGO reports, policy papers, annual reports
• University course pages and academic PDFs with mixed Thai-English content
• Healthcare and insurance forms that must remain readable at small sizes
• Bilingual invoices, receipts and admin UI for Thai SaaS products
• News websites where the body text must stay calm and legible

Where it doesn’t fit: luxury packaging, cinematic posters, fashion editorial. Sarabun is the opposite of expressive — anyone trying to sell emotion or prestige should reach for Pridi, Bai Jamjuree or a display face.

Pairings

Sarabun pairs best with Latin humanist sans or slab serifs that share its moderate x-height and low contrast. Three pairings that work in production:

• Inter — identical humanist skeleton and near-matching x-height, ideal for Thai-English product UI
• Source Serif Pro — quiet serif that adds editorial weight when Sarabun handles the UI text
• IBM Plex Mono — tabular companion for code or data tables inside bilingual documents

Licensing

Sarabun is released under the SIL Open Font License, which permits free commercial use, bundling, and modification provided the original copyright notice is preserved. The Google Fonts release, the f0nt.com release, and the 13-fonts national collection all ship under the same license. Verify the current license file at the Google Fonts specimen page or on the fonts directory. For government PDFs, TH Sarabun New is distributed under the same OFL terms by SIPA.

Information verified as of April 2026