Free Dyslexia Font

Last week a colleague asked me if there was a way to access the OpenDyslexic dyslexia font that is included in the iReadWrite iPad App in other programs such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, etc… Turns out that several others had the same question so I thought a blog post on the topic may be helpful.  This also works out great time-wise because October is National Dyslexia Awareness Month.

If you are not familiar with OpenDyslexic, it is basically a font that is designed to help readers with Dyslexia.  The font can be found at OpenDyslexic.org. According to the site, OpenDyslexic is created to help with some of the symptoms of dyslexia. Letters have heavy weighted bottoms to indicate direction. You are able to quickly figure out which part of the letter is down which aids in recognizing the correct letter, and sometimes helps to keep your brain from rotating them around. Consistently weighted bottoms can also help reinforce the line of text. The unique shapes of each letter can help prevent confusion through flipping and swapping.

Now that you know what the font is, here is how to access it…

1. Visit www.OpenDyslexic.org

2. Click “Download Now” to be taken to the download page.  Here you will see several versions of the font (bold, italic, etc.) and a download button.  Clicking the download button will download a zipped folder with all font variations.

3. Unzip the folder to see the list of fonts.

4. Simply double click a font to view it.  Click the install button in the viewer to add the font to your computer.

That’s it!  The font should now appear in common desktop applications such as Microsoft Word.

Find out more about how dyslexia software can help people struggling with dyslexia.