Goodbye Calibri: Microsoft replaces default font in Office with the new Aptos

If you’re someone who uses Microsoft 365 and its suite of Office tools a lot, you might soon find a change in how everything looks. Microsoft has announced that they’re replacing Calibri, the default font for Office for 15 years now, with the new font Aptos.

This search for a new font actually started way back in 2021, when Microsoft first commissioned five new fonts: Bierstadt, Grandview, Seaford, Skeena, and Tenorite. Following over two years of feedback from users, Microsoft can now reveal that Bierstadt not only won, but has been renamed Aptos too.

Created by Steve Matteson, dubbed one of the world’s leading type designers, Aptos is said to have been designed to have a slight humanist touch. Matteson wanted Aptos to have a universal appearl like that of late NPR radio personality Carl Kasell, while still have an astute tone to it. He also notes that the font comes with an understated personality to it.

“There’s always that little voice inside of me saying, ‘You know, you gotta try to sneak in a little bit of humanity. You can’t just use rulers and straight edges and French curves (a template used to help draw uniformed curves) to make all these shapes mechanical.’

I did that by adding a little swing to the R and the double stacked g,” – Steve Matteson

Aptos itself is a sans serif font, with a simple letterform that lets it be easily readable. With varying geometric shapes to it, Microsoft’s Si Daniels says that Aptos is bold, well defined, directive and constrained, making it professional yet relatable.

As for the other four font finalists, they’ll still be there in Office so fans of those can still use it. In fact, you’ll still even find Bierstadt there, even if it’s just the older name for Aptos. Daniels added that Aptos is just the first part of a broader wave of new features coming to Microsoft 365, with the goal being to make the software more expressive and inclusive.

Aptos will now start appearing as the default font on Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel, with Microsoft expecting the roll out to happen over the next few months. This change will affect the hundreds of millions of Microsoft Office users, but if you’re a Calibri fan then fret not, as Microsoft will continue to keep Calibri pinned at the top of the font menu though at the moment only on the web versions of Office.