# Times New Roman: history, who uses it, and a free twin

> Times New Roman was made for The Times in 1932. Its history, who still uses it, and Tinos, its free metric twin on Google Fonts.

Web page: https://davidewins.com/fonts/times-new-roman

Made for a London newspaper in 1932, then shipped with Windows.

Preview uses Tinos, the closest free match.

## History

- Stanley Morison of Monotype and Victor Lardent of The Times' advertising department designed it for The Times. [1]
- It first appeared in The Times on 3 October 1932, and the paper kept it for about 40 years. [1]
- Tinos, derived from Liberation Serif, is a free font with the same metrics. [1]

## Who uses it

- Every version of Windows since Windows 3.1 [1]
- The US State Department’s standard font from 2004 to 2023, and again from 2025 [1]
- The Australian Government logo, as a Times New Roman Bold wordmark [1]

## Sources

1. [Wikipedia: Times New Roman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_New_Roman)

## The free alternative

Tinos is from Google’s Croscore set and has the same character widths as Times New Roman.

Body fonts that go with Tinos:

- [Inter](https://davidewins.com/fonts?heading=times-new-roman&body=inter): A screen sans body makes a newspaper serif heading look current.
- [Source Sans 3](https://davidewins.com/fonts?heading=times-new-roman&body=source-sans-3): Humanist sans with gentle contrast, so it sits well next to a transitional serif.
- [Libre Franklin](https://davidewins.com/fonts?heading=times-new-roman&body=libre-franklin): Franklin Gothic shapes, the classic newspaper sans to go with a newspaper serif.

[Open Times New Roman in the pairing tool](https://davidewins.com/fonts?heading=times-new-roman)