Thai font · OFL

TF Phethai

By Narongsak Chaiwong

Typography & Licensing Specialist, ThaiGraph · October 19, 2026

Information verified as of October 2026

อ่านหน้า ฟอนต์ TF Phethai เป็นภาษาไทย — พร้อมลิงก์ดาวน์โหลดและวิธีติดตั้ง →

What TF Phethai is

TF Phethai is a heavy looped Thai sans in two styles, Regular and Italic, released free in 2008 (B.E. 2551) by the Federation of Thai Printing Industries (FTPI) under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, so it is free for commercial use. Despite the name, its Regular is darker than the Bold of its sibling TF Srivichai, which makes it a face for headlines and short text rather than running copy.

According to its ThaiFaces specimen, TF Phethai is an improved version of the font EACPaetai and one of 13 fonts from the Federation’s type development project — the same programme as TF Srivichai, a four-style text face. The two work together under the same licence.

The font files credit the designer only as “FTPI”. They name neither the person who did the digitisation nor the designer of the original EACPaetai, so we credit the Federation as copyright holder and publisher, as the files do. Searches for “TF Phethai” and “tf phethai” both mean this font.

Where the TF fonts come from

The TF family came out of a copyright problem in the Thai printing trade: the Federation received complaints from its members, so it took older typefaces nobody was developing any more, rebuilt them as Unicode OpenType fonts, and gave them away. ThaiFaces quotes this background from the Federation’s 2010 press release on the project.

The result is a set of fonts that printers and designers can use without arguing over who is liable for a typeface’s copyright. The project sponsors recorded inside the font files are listed on the TF Srivichai page.

Letterforms and weight

TF Phethai is a dense, heavy looped sans whose head loops stay visible despite the weight, paired with a humanist Latin sans drawn just as heavy. It makes itself felt from the first line.

Both files declare a weight of 400 (Regular), and that number misleads. In our test, setting the same 29 Thai consonants at the same size, TF Phethai Regular put down about 1.2 times the ink of TF Srivichai Bold and about twice the ink of TF Srivichai Regular. Do not press Bold on TF Phethai in your software: there is no true bold file, so the program will fake one, which distorts the letterforms from what was drawn.

The italic slants at 12 degrees according to the file’s own metadata, and each file holds 745 glyphs covering Thai plus full upper- and lowercase Latin.

Download TF Phethai

The entry point we recommend is the TF Phethai specimen on ThaiFaces, which carries both the download button and the licence. The button points to TF_Phethai.zip, about 193 KB, on freefont.thaifont.info. The zip holds two .ttf files, Regular and Italic.

Use the link ThaiFaces points to rather than a general font aggregator, and keep the licence file with your project.

Best use cases

TF Phethai suits short text that has to read from a distance and should keep a traditional Thai voice, because it is still a looped face. Strong briefs:

• Poster, flyer and notice headlines
• Labels and packaging where the product name has to dominate
• Presentation slides and social graphics with only a few words
• Headings in documents whose text is set in a lighter looped face

Where it does not fit: long text and small sizes, because the heavy strokes may fill in the head loops when reduced. Pair it with a text face such as Sarabun or TF Srivichai. If you need a looped face with a range of weights, look at Noto Sans Thai Looped, compare others in looped Thai fonts, and try your own text in the Thai font tester.

Licensing

TF Phethai is free for commercial use. The licence file ThaiFaces links states “This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1”, and ThaiFaces records the terms as free to use under OFL 1.1. No permission or payment is needed to use it in design work.

Ahead of the OFL text, the document carries FTPI’s own agreement, which is also embedded in the licence field of the font files. In short: use, reproduce, study, adapt and distribute at no charge; do not sell the font by itself unless bundled with a computer program; notify the Federation in writing if you adapt it; and adapted versions may not use the reserved names, which include TF Phethai and TF Phethai Italic.

In practice: use it in client work, print, packaging and on the web straight away. If you build your own bold or redraw glyphs, give it a new name and notify the Federation first. That places TF Phethai among the genuinely commercial-safe free Thai fonts. More in the Thai font licensing guide.

Information verified as of October 2026