Century Expanded Font

The publisher traces Century Expanded to Morris Fuller Benton’s 1900 development for American Type Founders, following the earlier Century work associated with Linn Boyd Benton and Century Magazine. The word Expanded identifies this historical branch rather than a generic instruction to widen text.

Read the publisher’s family page for the source account and the edition currently offered. Keep a family name distinct from its particular release, width or optical branch.

The URW listing identifies regular and italic resources. Compare those exact files and their proportions; ordinary Century, Century Schoolbook and other later editions should not be treated as interchangeable names for the same resource.

Use the original publisher specimen to inspect those features. An alternative can share a broad role without having the same letter shapes, metrics or character coverage.

Try a magazine-style paragraph with italic emphasis and a longer heading. Source Serif 4 and Lora offer independent text-serif comparisons. Check line endings and punctuation at the final column width.

For independent comparisons, try Source Serif 4 and Lora. Use the same wording and approximate output size. The related style guide provides broader design context.

Use URW Type Foundry on MyFonts to try the original and investigate the files, styles and terms for your intended workflow. This site does not distribute or serve Century Expanded font software.

The editable alternatives here have their own source profiles and included licenses. For the difference between a font file and copied characters, read Unicode text versus fonts.