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Are there any fonts that I can use in my font stack that are more or less similar to Myriad Pro and web safe?

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    By "web safe" do you mean in terms of license/cost (as in, free and open source, therefore usable on the web without additional licensing), or do you mean that it's optimised for the web (comes with TTF and WOFF versions and an @font-face rule) or do you mean that it's installed on most people's computers/devices already, thus making it "safe" to use on web pages?
    – thomasrutter
    Commented Oct 23, 2012 at 3:30

17 Answers 17

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You might be able to find something similar in the Google Fonts directory. All you have to do is include their link in your html page's head and you can use the fonts in your CSS.

PT Sans is pretty similar (compared to the rest of the list)

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    -1 I think that the majority of google fonts are not really good material of fonts, they lack many glyphs, and do not have weights.
    – Littlemad
    Commented Jan 5, 2012 at 16:01
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    Lacking weights, sure, but there are many professional fonts that come in few weights as well, as for glyphs, please take a look at the fonts, they've got six alphabets you can filter by (two of which have extra glyphs), I think you're flat out wrong. Plus find me a better free service.
    – dkuntz2
    Commented Jan 7, 2012 at 0:55
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    Good find, but PT's letter "Q" is pretty loud though.
    – jonallard
    Commented May 31, 2012 at 19:57
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    Consider also that 90+% of social media traffic is now via mobile (including the obligatory website in-coming links) and that 55+% of website traffic is mobile. In terms of websites it has to be less about aesthetic and more about what font represents your communication most effectively across a responsive design i.e. its not good enough that it works well on a 27" iMac screen. What about a 4 inch 3 year old mobile phone? This is the real world and makes a free service like Google Fonts a no brainer for me. And time is money commercially - how much have you got to waste on testing a font?
    – Applefanboy
    Commented Sep 20, 2019 at 9:04
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According to Wikipedia Myriad Pro is bundled with Adobe Reader not with Windows.

And a quick Google search shows you can use it on the web using Typekit (with a $24.99/year subscription): http://typekit.com/fonts/myriad-pro

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  • I did go to ampersandconf and discovered more services around +1 Best service around for me (other alternatives are fontdeck, webtype, myfonts, hoefler & frere-jones, and fontfont)
    – Littlemad
    Commented Jan 5, 2012 at 16:05
  • @Littlemad you know that H&FJ doesn't have a webfont service, right?
    – dkuntz2
    Commented Jan 7, 2012 at 0:56
  • I was at Ampersandconf 2011.ampersandconf.com where Jonathan Hoefler declared they are working on putting on the web their fonts. typography.com/ask/faq.php?faqID=126#Faq_126 I am sincerely quite surprised that they didn't publish yet anything after all these months.
    – Littlemad
    Commented Jan 9, 2012 at 9:43
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If your website targets the designer crowd, many of them will have the Adobe Suite installed (don't ask by what means). Kottke.org uses it without css embedding, and this is his font family rule:

font-family: MyriadPro-Regular, 'Myriad Pro Regular', MyriadPro, 'Myriad Pro', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;

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  • While it is just a stack, it's a rather good stack for this case.
    – dkuntz2
    Commented Jan 12, 2011 at 13:56
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    Where did you get those font names? Adobe should be the only foundry that produces Myriad, and they've only released it as "Myriad" "Myriad Pro" (OpenType), and "Myriad Web Pro". The other versions you referenced are not standard. They might be created if someone ran a copy of Adobe's font through a font editor or font converter, but that's an incredibly unlikely scenario.
    – Lèse majesté
    Commented Jan 11, 2012 at 4:01
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A free font that is very, very close: Vegur

The character support isn't the best, but if it's only for headlines and it really has to be Myriad, then the extra effort of @font-face-ing it may be worth it.

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    "Web safe" means that it should be available on a client browser without having to install it. It does not matter if it's free - you still have to download and install it on you computer to see it on a web page that uses it. Verdana is quite safe because it comes default installed on many systems. Arial is even more common. As a last fallback, use sans serif, which is a standard name for this font style, and all browsers will automatically translate that to a similar font installed.
    – Aᵂᴱ
    Commented Jun 27, 2011 at 9:18
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    Vegur is in Public Domain, so you can always prepare a web font and host it on your server. This way you can make it available on most browsers without necessity of user-assisted installation (I mean, on IE, even older versions, Opera, Safari, Chrome, Firefox and probably few more).
    – skalee
    Commented Jun 28, 2011 at 19:41
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You have various choices:

  • One day in the future you could use @font-face loading any font that you want (which license is free to distribution).

  • If you use it only for titles, you could use the SIFR technique that use flash, or a simple Image Replacement technique

  • Or you could use, like already suggested payment hosting servers for font Typekit.

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Vegur has a @font-face (as well as Cufon) kit at http://www.cufonfonts.com/en/font/12046/vegur. Browser support has advanced to the point that most people will be able to see the font used through @font-face even if they don't have the font installed, as long as the font is hosted on the server.

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I had the same question, I settled at CartoGothic-Std after reading the following article:

http://www.onextrapixel.com/2011/06/29/10-awesome-alternative-free-web-fonts/

The font's download link:

http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/CartoGothic-Std

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    Carto is an unabashed rip-off of Frutiger. Since Myriad is mostly a rip off of Frutiger as well (less so than Carto), that's your match.
    – plainclothes
    Commented Jan 22, 2013 at 17:13
  • Had no Idea of what it was, and can't argue nothing but recognize the relation. However it is nice to find similar free alternatives to paid fonts. However I'll acquire both Frutiger and Myriad eventually. I do not work at design but those are must-have fonts.
    – A. Perez Cera
    Commented Jan 22, 2013 at 17:37
  • Frutiger and Univers are both amazing pieces of work for which Adrian Frutiger is owed a huge debt by the design industry :)
    – plainclothes
    Commented Jan 22, 2013 at 19:44
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When I can't use Myriad Pro (which is our corporate standard for titles, headings, etc) I usually use Verdana. I've never had a problem with it not being available.

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  • Frutiger and Trebuchet are also a good match, Lucida Grande slightly less so, but also similar.
    – Lèse majesté
    Commented Jan 11, 2012 at 4:34
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On my Windows 7 installation (with MS Office 2010 installed) I have these fonts that are the closest match: Lucida Sans, Segoe UI, Calibri , and then the generic font sans serif as the last fallback.

CSS for this would be:

font-family: Myriad Pro, Lucida Sans, Segoe UI, Calibri, sans serif;
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    Arial is a neogrotesque font like Helvetica and Univers or Akzidenz-Grotesk. It's not a good substitute for Myriad, which is a humanist font. For Windows OSes, a better substitute for Myriad besides Verdana would be Frutiger or Trebuchet. Likewise "sans serif" isn't the name of an actual font family. On OS X, Helvetica will be used as "sans serif" and on Windows, it'll be Arial usually. On Ubuntu, it'll map to Ubuntu, which is a humanist sans serif font, but I don't know what it maps to on other OSes.
    – Lèse majesté
    Commented Jan 11, 2012 at 4:29
  • @Lèsemajesté: I agree that Verdana and Arial might not be the best choices. I have changed my answer to propose some better alternatives. When it comes to "sans serif", this is one of the five generic fonts, that are the only ones truly "web safe", because they are defined in the web standards, and the browser tries to find the best fit. See w3.org for example usage on CSS generic fonts.
    – Aᵂᴱ
    Commented Jan 11, 2012 at 14:19
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Open Sans would be the best alternative font for that!

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Source Sans Pro is a great alternative.

It's available through Google Fonts: http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Source+Sans+Pro

Very similar to Myriad Pro, big family. Authored by Adobe (who also authored Myriad Pro) as its first open source type family for text.

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I've tried all the fonts suggested above, and I still don't think any of them match Myriad Pro like Trebuchet MS does. Give that a try. It tends to be a little skinnier/less bold than Myriad, but I find I can get it pretty close after messing around with font properties.

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To all the people planning to use the Google Font Directory (it rocks, I use it too sometimes). Be aware that some fonts add significant weight/loading time to your pages. In the case of the mentioned PT Sans family it is "Added page weight: 224kb compressed". Check it out here: http://www.google.com/webfonts/family?family=PT+Sans&subset=latin

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If you want to use @font-face i always look to font squirrel. you can upload fonts and they will create a set for your site with the included css.

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One more similar/alternate of Myriad Pro is Maven Pro(google font). See Link

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Humanist Sans typefaces.

From Google Fonts look at Cabin or Lato, often recommended, I personally feel neither are that close.

Possible: Maven Pro.

An alternative to look into: the Ubuntu font (on Gfonts).

Another premium font for inspiration: Optima.

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If Verdana is close enough, DejaVu Sans is closer. The two are compared here; note the 'I', 'Q', and 'R'.

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