What font do memes use?
Impact: white capitals with a black outline, top text and bottom text. Its free look-alike is Anton, which you can download below. Newer caption memes use black text in a white bar instead. Type a line to compare them all.
Checking whether this device has Impact…
When you finally find the meme font
Impact
The classic. Preinstalled on Windows and macOS.
When you finally find the meme font
Anton
Free Impact look-alike (SIL Open Font License). Download below.
When you finally find the meme font
Arial Black
Wider and rounder. What many apps fall back to.
When you finally find the meme font
White-bar caption
Black sentence-case text in a white bar above the picture.
The meme fonts, and where to get each
| Font | Look | Used for | Licence | Get it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Impact | Tall, condensed, heavy. Set in white capitals with a black outline. | Classic top-text / bottom-text image macros: Success Kid, One Does Not Simply, Bad Luck Brian. | Commercial (Monotype). Preinstalled on Windows and macOS. You can’t redistribute the font file, so we don’t offer it as a download. | Microsoft’s Impact page |
| Anton | Almost the same shape as Impact: condensed, heavy, all-caps friendly. | The usual Impact stand-in on Android and on the web. This site falls back to it when Impact is missing. | SIL Open Font License 1.1: free for personal and commercial use, including in apps and on websites. | Download Anton (.ttf) · Google Fonts |
| Futura Condensed ExtraBold | Black, sentence-case text in a white bar above the picture. | Caption memes, the style that spread from iFunny to Instagram and X. | Commercial. On macOS and iOS as part of the Futura family. No free download. | Close free option: Anton or Oswald in sentence case |
| Helvetica, Arial, Chirp | The platform’s own sans-serif, normal weight. | Tweet-screenshot memes: the joke is the post text, the picture sits under it. | Whatever the platform ships. Arial is on Windows and macOS; Chirp is X’s own font. | Nothing to download |
Why Impact became the meme font
Impact was drawn by Geoff Lee in 1965 for the Stephenson Blake type foundry, as a heavy headline face for posters and newspapers. Microsoft later bundled it with Windows, and it has shipped with Macs as well, so by the 2000s it was on nearly every computer.
That mattered when image macros took off. Impact is condensed, so a full sentence fits across a photo. It is heavy, so it reads at thumbnail size. With a black outline, white Impact stays readable on any background, dark or light. The early meme generators used it by default, and after a few years the look itself became part of the joke.
The style has changed since. Many memes now put the text in a white bar above the image, or are screenshots of posts. Impact is still what people mean by “the meme font”, and it still signals “this is a meme” faster than anything else.
Why the meme font isn’t Impact on your phone
Fonts aren’t sent along with a web page or an app by default. They are either installed on the device or bundled by whoever built the site. Most Android phones don’t come with Impact, so a meme maker that just asks for “Impact” gets whatever the phone picks instead, usually a wider, rounder sans-serif.
Meme apps fix this by bundling a look-alike, usually Anton. This site does the same: it draws with Impact when your device has it and Anton when it doesn’t, so the meme you download looks right either way. The check at the top of this page shows which one your device is using.
How to write classic meme text in any editor
- 1
Pick Impact, or Anton if you don’t have Impact
On Windows and macOS Impact is already in the font list. On anything else, install Anton: download the .ttf above, open it, press Install.
- 2
Type in capitals, white fill
Classic meme text is all caps and pure white (#FFFFFF). Centre it horizontally.
- 3
Add a black outline
Photoshop: Layer Style → Stroke, black, position Outside, about a tenth of the letter height. GIMP: Layer → Text to Path, then Edit → Stroke Path on a layer underneath. Web: the CSS from the tester above.
- 4
Top line up top, punchline at the bottom
Keep each line to one or two rows. Shrink the text rather than letting it cover the face or the thing the joke is about.
- 5
Export as PNG or JPG
PNG keeps the outline crisp; JPG is smaller. Either is fine for every platform.
Or let the tool do it: the AI meme generator sets the font, outline and sizing for you, and “Write it myself” opens a blank template in the editor if you’d rather type the text yourself.
Questions
What font do memes use?
Impact. The classic meme style is Impact in white capitals with a black outline, one line at the top of the picture and one at the bottom. Newer caption memes put black text in a white bar above the picture instead, usually in Futura Condensed ExtraBold or a plain sans-serif like Helvetica or Arial.
Why do memes use Impact?
Three reasons. It is condensed, so a whole sentence fits across the top of a photo. It is very heavy, so it stays readable when the image is shrunk to a thumbnail. And it shipped with Windows and Mac computers for years, so when people started making image macros in the 2000s it was already on almost everyone’s machine, and the early meme-generator sites used it by default.
Is Impact free? Can I download it?
Impact comes preinstalled on Windows and macOS, so most people already have it. It is a commercial font owned by Monotype, and its licence does not allow sharing the font file. That is why this page offers Anton, a free look-alike, instead of an Impact download. Using Impact that is already installed to make a meme image is ordinary use of the font.
What is the best free alternative to Impact?
Anton. It has nearly the same proportions and weight, and it is released under the SIL Open Font License, so you can use it for anything, including commercial work, apps and websites. Download the .ttf from this page or get it from Google Fonts.
Why does meme text look different on my phone?
Most Android phones don’t include Impact. When a site or app asks for Impact and it isn’t there, the phone uses the next font on the list: Anton if the site bundled it, otherwise Arial Black or the default sans-serif. The letters come out wider or rounder. The tester at the top of this page tells you whether your device has Impact.
What font is the white-bar caption meme?
Usually Futura Condensed ExtraBold, black on white, in sentence case. Tweet-style screenshots use the platform font instead (Chirp on X, Helvetica or Arial elsewhere). This site’s editor has a “Tweet look” button that puts your caption into a white bar in one click.
What font does this site use for memes?
Impact when your device has it, Anton when it doesn’t, then Arial Black. The editor also has a clean sans-serif option for white-bar captions and labels.
How do I install Anton?
Windows: download the .ttf, right-click it and choose Install. macOS: double-click the file and press Install Font. After that it shows up in Photoshop, GIMP, Word and other desktop apps’ font lists. Phones generally don’t let you install system fonts, but you don’t need to: a meme maker that bundles the font renders it for you.