Fonts and typography

There is no single best font, but clean, widely available fonts such as Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, Lato, Open Sans, Georgia, Cambria and Garamond are all safe, professional choices. What matters most is that the font is easy to read on screen and on paper, and that it displays correctly on any device.

When choosing, consider:

• Readability at small sizes: avoid thin, condensed or decorative fonts.
• Availability: a common font is less likely to be swapped for something else when the file is opened elsewhere.
• Tone: sans serif fonts feel modern; serif fonts feel traditional and formal.
• Character support: if your resume includes Arabic, Hindi or accented names, the font must display those characters properly.

Saving as a PDF helps, because the fonts are kept inside the file. Pick one font, use it consistently, and focus on size and spacing so the page looks calm and organised.

Use 10 to 12 points for body text, depending on the font. Some fonts look larger than others at the same size, so 10.5 in one font may look like 11.5 in another. Check the printed or on-screen result rather than relying on the number alone.

A typical size hierarchy:

• Name: 18 to 28 points.
• Section headings: 12 to 14 points, often bold.
• Job titles: same as body or slightly larger, bold.
• Body text and bullets: 10 to 12 points.
• Dates and small details: never below about 9 points.

If you have to drop below 10 points to fit everything on the page, the problem is usually too much content, not the font size. Cut or tighten your bullets instead of shrinking the text.

Either works. Sans serif fonts such as Arial, Calibri or Lato have clean, simple letter shapes and look modern, especially on screens. Serif fonts such as Georgia, Cambria or Garamond have small strokes at the ends of letters and feel traditional and formal.

How to decide:

• Technology, start-ups, marketing and most modern roles: sans serif suits the tone.
• Law, academia, publishing and some finance roles: a serif can look fitting.
• Not sure: a clean sans serif is the safest all-round option.

Both are equally readable for software, as long as the text is real text in a PDF. Some people combine a serif for headings with a sans serif for body text; if you do, stick to just those two fonts.

Yes, Times New Roman is still acceptable and very readable. It is widely available and prints clearly. The only downside is that it is so common, especially as an old word processor default, that some readers see it as plain or dated.

If you like a traditional serif look but want something slightly fresher, alternatives include Georgia, Cambria, Garamond or Book Antiqua.

If you do use Times New Roman, note that it looks small at the same point size as many other fonts. Body text at 11 or 12 points usually reads better than 10. Pair it with clear bold headings and good spacing, and it will look perfectly professional.

Yes. Calibri is clean, modern and easy to read on screens, which makes it a popular, safe resume font. It is widely installed on Windows and Office computers, so it usually displays correctly if a file is opened elsewhere.

Things to know:

• Calibri looks quite small for its point size, so 11 points is a good starting point for body text.
• Because it has been a common default font, some readers find it ordinary, but ordinary is not a problem on a resume.
• It works well for both headings and body text, so you may not need a second font.

If you want an alternative with a similar feel, try Carlito, Lato, Open Sans or Source Sans.

Yes. Arial is a plain, professional sans serif that is available almost everywhere and reads clearly on screen and paper. It is a dependable choice for any industry.

Tips for using Arial well:

• Body text at 10 to 11 points is usually enough because Arial is relatively wide.
• Use bold for headings and job titles rather than switching fonts.
• Add line spacing so dense paragraphs do not feel cramped.

Helvetica is a near twin of Arial and is common on Apple devices. If you want something slightly softer, Lato, Open Sans or Roboto give a similar modern look.

Avoid fonts that are hard to read, look informal or may not display correctly. The usual ones to avoid are:

• Comic Sans and other playful or handwritten fonts.
• Script and calligraphy fonts, except possibly for a designer's name.
• Very thin, light or condensed fonts that fade at small sizes.
• Novelty fonts such as Papyrus, Impact or stencil styles.
• Unusual downloaded fonts that are not embedded in the file.

These fonts either distract the reader, look unprofessional, or risk being replaced by a default font that breaks your layout. Even creative roles are better served by a clean font with confident spacing than by a decorative one.

One or two fonts at most. A single font family, using bold, regular and different sizes for hierarchy, is often the cleanest option. Two fonts can work if they contrast well, for example a serif for headings and a sans serif for body text.

Using three or more fonts makes a resume look disorganised, and readers may struggle to see what is a heading and what is detail.

Create variety within your chosen font instead:

• Bold for job titles and headings.
• Regular for body text.
• Italic sparingly, perhaps for company location or a short note.
• Capitals for section headings.

Use single spacing or slightly more, roughly 1.0 to 1.15, for body text. That keeps the resume compact while giving each line enough room to breathe. Double spacing wastes space and makes the resume look stretched.

Spacing within and between blocks matters as much as line spacing:

• Add a little extra space between bullet points if they feel crowded.
• Add more space between job entries than between bullets.
• Add the most space above section headings.

If you need to reduce line spacing below single to fit the page, it is a sign to cut content instead. Tightly packed lines make a resume tiring to read.

They can be. Capital letters (or small capitals) for section headings such as "WORK EXPERIENCE" and "EDUCATION" are a common, clear way to show where a new section starts. Title case, such as "Work Experience", in bold is equally professional.

Whichever you choose:

• Use the same style for every heading.
• Keep headings short and standard, so both people and applicant tracking systems recognise them.
• Do not use capitals for body text or whole bullets, as long passages in capitals are harder to read.

Standard headings such as Experience, Education and Skills are safer than creative ones such as "My Journey" or "What I Bring".

Use bold to create structure, not to emphasise random words. The most useful places for bold are:

• Your name.
• Section headings.
• Job titles (or company names, but choose one and be consistent).
• Degree titles in the education section.

Use bold inside bullet points rarely, if at all. Bolding a key result in a few bullets can help, but bolding several words per bullet makes everything look equally important, which defeats the purpose.

A good test is to look at the page from a distance. The bold text alone should show the skeleton of your resume: who you are, the sections and the roles you have held.

Use italic sparingly. It is useful for small secondary details, such as a company's location, a one-line description of what the company does, or the name of a publication, but long passages in italic are harder to read, especially on screens.

Good uses of italic:

• A short company description under the employer name.
• Titles of books, journals or papers in a publications section.
• A brief note such as "Contract role" or "Remote".

Avoid italicising entire bullet points or your summary. Also check that the italic version of your font is clear at your chosen size; some fonts become thin and spidery in italic.

It is better to avoid underlining text. Underlines can cut through the bottoms of letters, look old-fashioned and can be mistaken for hyperlinks on screen.

Instead of underlining, you can:

• Make headings bold or capitalised.
• Add a thin line across the page under each heading, separate from the text.
• Increase the font size of headings slightly.

If you include links, such as a LinkedIn profile or portfolio, they do not need to be underlined in a PDF. Keep them in your normal text colour, and they will still be clickable.

It can in some cases. Applicant tracking systems read the text stored in your file. Unusual fonts, especially decorative ones, can sometimes be stored or converted in ways that produce strange characters or missing letters when extracted. Text turned into images, such as a heading saved as a picture, cannot be read as text at all.

To stay safe:

• Use a standard, widely available font.
• Export to a text-based PDF, where text can be selected and copied.
• Avoid special symbols as bullets or icons in place of words.

A quick test: open your PDF, select all the text, copy it and paste it into a plain text editor. If it reads correctly in the right order, most systems should be able to read it too, although every system and employer setup differs.

Avoid going below about 9 points for anything, and keep main body text at 10 points or more. Tiny text is tiring to read on screens and almost impossible on a phone, and it looks like you are trying to cram too much in.

Small sizes may be acceptable for very minor details, such as a short footnote or a page number, but not for achievements, skills or contact details.

If your content does not fit at a readable size:

• Remove older or less relevant roles.
• Cut bullets to the strongest three to five per job.
• Combine short sections, such as certifications and training.
• Move to a second page if your experience justifies it.

You can, but you do not have to. Using one font with bold headings looks clean and avoids clashes. If you use two fonts, choose a pair that contrasts clearly while matching in tone.

Examples of pairings that work:

• Georgia headings with Arial body text.
• Lato headings with Garamond body text.
• Montserrat headings with Open Sans body text.

Keep to these rules:

• No more than two fonts.
• Use each font in the same role throughout.
• Make sure both fonts support any special characters in your resume.

If you are unsure whether a pairing looks good, stick to one font. A single well-sized font never looks wrong.

Choose a clear Arabic font designed for reading text, not a decorative calligraphy style. Fonts commonly used for documents include families such as Noto Naskh Arabic, Noto Sans Arabic, Amiri, Cairo, Tajawal and the Arabic versions of system fonts like Arial and Tahoma.

Tips for Arabic resumes:

• Arabic text often needs a slightly larger size than English to read comfortably, so test 11 to 13 points.
• Make sure the layout runs right to left, with headings and bullets aligned correctly.
• If you mix English terms (software names, certifications), check the Latin letters look consistent.
• Avoid ornate calligraphic fonts for body text.

ResumeBuilder.ae supports Arabic resumes laid out right to left; you choose the resume language on the Design tab, and the builder warns before payment if any character cannot be included in the PDF.

You can, but do it carefully and only when it helps. Most employers expect a resume in one main language. Small amounts of the other script, such as your name written in Arabic under the English version, or Arabic listed under languages, are fine.

If you mix scripts:

• Make sure your font displays both scripts clearly, at similar visual sizes.
• Keep each line in one direction to avoid jumbled word order.
• Check the PDF carefully, as mixed-direction text can display numbers or punctuation in unexpected places.

If an employer needs both languages, it is usually cleaner to prepare two separate resumes, one in English and one in Arabic, each with the correct layout direction.

Use fonts designed for those scripts, such as the Noto families (Noto Sans Devanagari, Noto Serif Devanagari, Noto Sans Malayalam), Mukta or Hind for Devanagari, or Manjari for Malayalam. Many decorative fonts cannot display these scripts and will show boxes or broken letters.

Tips:

• Test the font with your actual name and headings, including conjunct characters.
• Indic scripts often need a slightly larger size or more line spacing than English.
• Keep English technical terms in a font that matches visually.

ResumeBuilder.ae supports Hindi (Devanagari) and Malayalam resumes; choose the resume language on the Design tab. Before payment, the builder warns if any character cannot be included in the PDF, so you can check everything displays correctly.

This usually means the font used cannot display those characters, or the font was not embedded in the PDF. It often happens with accented names, non-Latin scripts, special bullets, dashes or symbols copied from other documents.

How to fix it:

• Replace unusual symbols, such as fancy bullets or arrows, with standard ones.
• Retype text copied from websites or other files, as it may contain hidden characters.
• Switch to a font that supports your language.
• Export the PDF again and check every page.

In ResumeBuilder.ae, the checklist before payment flags characters the PDF cannot print, and the builder warns if any character cannot be included. Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters are not yet supported in the PDF.

Left-aligned text is usually better than fully justified text. Justified text stretches lines so both edges are straight, which can create uneven gaps between words, especially in narrow columns and short bullet points. Those gaps make the text harder to read.

Left alignment keeps word spacing even and gives a natural, readable rhythm. It is also the standard alignment for most resume templates.

Use other alignments only for specific elements:

• Centred: your name and contact header, if your template is designed that way.
• Right-aligned: dates, so they line up neatly down the page.

Keep body text and bullets left-aligned throughout.

Readability comes from a clear hierarchy and enough breathing room. Focus on these points:

• Use one readable font at 10 to 12 points for body text.
• Make headings clearly different: bold, slightly larger, maybe in capitals.
• Keep line length comfortable; very long lines across a wide page are harder to follow.
• Use short bullet points instead of long paragraphs.
• Leave space between sections and between jobs.
• Align dates consistently.

Readers often skim, so typography should let them find job titles, employers, dates and key results quickly. If someone can glance at your resume and understand your career path in a few moments, your typography is doing its job.

Job titles usually look best at the same size as body text or one point larger, in bold. That makes them easy to spot without breaking the visual flow.

A clean hierarchy for each job entry:

• Job title: bold, body size or slightly larger.
• Company name and location: regular, body size.
• Dates: regular, body size or slightly smaller, aligned right.
• Bullets: regular, body size.

Example:
Operations Supervisor (bold)
Gulf Logistics LLC, Abu Dhabi (regular) Mar 2021 to Present

Making the job title much bigger than section headings confuses the hierarchy, so keep headings as the larger element.

This happens when the file uses a font that is not installed on the reader's computer and the font is not embedded. Word documents are especially prone to this: the program replaces your font with a default, which can change line breaks, push content onto a second page or break the layout.

To prevent it:

• Send a PDF unless the employer asks for another format; PDFs usually embed fonts.
• Use widely available fonts if you must send a Word file.
• Open your final file on a different device to check it.

ResumeBuilder.ae exports text-based PDFs only. If an employer insists on a Word file, you can copy the text from the builder into a word processor and format it there with a common font.

Yes. Georgia is a serif font designed to be readable on screens, so it works well for resumes that will be read online and printed. It looks professional, slightly traditional and more distinctive than Times New Roman.

Tips:

• Georgia is fairly large for its point size, so 10 or 10.5 points for body text often looks right.
• It works well for headings paired with a sans serif body font, or on its own.
• It suits law, education, publishing, consulting and finance particularly well.

Because it is widely installed, it usually displays correctly across devices. In a PDF, the font is normally embedded anyway.