How to Choose Accessible Fonts for Your Digital Products (Without Being A Graphic Designer)

If you’re creating your first digital product (like a workbook, course, or PDF guide), you’ve probably stared at that font dropdown menu in Canva or Word wondering: Which one won’t make my product look homemade?

Well…the “best” font isn’t the prettiest one. It’s the one your customers can actually read.

Choosing accessible fonts for your digital products, especially for an audience that might be reading on phones, printing pages, or dealing with screen fatigue, is all about respect. You’re saying: I want you to actually be able to use this thing I made! 

The good news is you don’t need to be a graphic designer to get this right. Just follow five practical guidelines that will make your digital products easier to read, more professional, and more likely to actually get finished by the people who buy them.

1. Accessible Fonts Prioritize Readability Over Personality

I know you want your digital product to feel warm and inviting (and look cute!). But decorative script fonts are exhausting to read for more than a headline.

The most accessible fonts for digital products are clean sans-serif fonts. “Sans-serif means without feet”… I still hear this from when I worked at WVU as a technical writer, my mentor said this to me. It still makes me laugh today.  

In the image below, you can see the “feet” (the extra lines that hang off the end of the letters). And the sans-serif font are clean and crisp.

These sans-serif fonts are simple letter shapes that your brain can scan without working overtime. So when it comes to your digital product:

Do this:

• Choose clean sans-serif fonts for body text (Arial, Open Sans, Lato, or Montserrat are solid choices)
• Make sure similar characters are clearly different, like: I, l, 1 and O, 0 (eye), l (lower case L), 1 (one), O (oh), and 0 (zero)
• Test your font by typing “Il1O0” and checking if you can tell them apart

Avoid:

• Overly decorative, handwritten, or script fonts for paragraphs
• Fonts with extreme thin or thick strokes that disappear when printed
• Anything that makes you squint

Remember: You can always bring out the personality of your digital product through its layout, colors, icons, and white space. It doesn’t all have to come from the use of fancy fonts all over.

2. Accessible Fonts Use a Comfortable Font Size

Font accessibility isn’t just which font you choose for you digital product. It’s also how you use the font throughout your product.

Here are some best practices for readability in your digital products:

• Body text: At least 12 pt for PDFs (13-14 pt is even better, I sometimes use 16 point, depending on the font)
• Line spacing: 1.4-1.6 for paragraphs (not the default 1.0)
• White space: Add breathing room between sections instead of cramming everything in

This attention to detail is especially important for:

• Readers over 40 (hello, presbyopia)
• People who are reading on phones or tablets
• Printable workbooks that might be used in less-than-ideal lighting

If you’re thinking “but it makes my PDF longer,” just remember the goal is for people to actually finish your product. So that is more important than keeping it short.

3. Accessible Fonts Means Fewer Fonts 

Too many fonts = visual chaos. And chaos makes people feel like they should probably just…not read this right now.

Here are a few rules for accessible font use to add to your style guide or Canva template:

• 1 font for body text
• 1 font for headings (optional: just use bold/larger sizes of your body font)

Often, a single font family with multiple weights (regular, bold, semibold) creates a more polished, accessible digital product than mixing three different fonts trying to look “creative.”

If your fonts were people at a party, you want them to get along—not compete for attention!

4. Accessible Fonts Have Good Contrast and Weight

Even the most readable font becomes difficult to read if your contrast is weak.

When designing your pages, check that:

• Text is dark enough against its background (e.g., light gray on white doesn’t work)
• Thin or light font weights aren’t used for long paragraphs
• Headings are clearly heavier or larger, not just a different color or font

The safest bet for instructional content is black (or very dark gray) on a light background. It’s not boring, it’s effective.

Here’s a quick test: Take a photo of your page with your phone, convert it to grayscale, and see if everything is still easy to read. If it all blurs together, adjust your contrast!

5. Test Your Fonts Like a Real User Would

Before you finalize your beautiful workbook, course, or PDF, test it the way your actual customers will experience it.

• Zoom your document to 125-150%… Is it still clean and readable?
• View it on your phone… Can you read it without zooming?
• Print one page and read it quickly in different lighting
• Ask yourself: Can I scan this without effort, or am I working to decode it?

If the font disappears, blurs, or makes you tired, it’s not the right choice (no matter how pretty it looks in Canva). Your readers aren’t going to email you and say “great font choice!” I always remind myself of this when I start obsessing over fonts: No one is going to care or appreciate the hours and hours I spent choosing one font.

A Final Word About Font Accessibility

Accessible fonts don’t make your digital product boring.

They make it usable, trustworthy, and professional. And this is exactly what helps your learners and customers actually finish what you create.

Your workbook might have the best content in the world, but if people can’t comfortably read it, they’ll set it aside with good intentions and never come back.

You’ve put your knowledge, your experience, and your heart into your digital product creation. Don’t let a hard-to-read font be the reason it doesn’t get used as you intended.