Lexend, Atkinson Hyperlegible or OpenDyslexic: which reading font should you use?

Skimora can swap any page into one of five fonts: the page's own original, Lexend, Atkinson Hyperlegible, OpenDyslexic, or Comic Sans. Three of those were specifically designed with reading in mind, and it helps to know what each one was actually built to do before you pick.

Lexend

Lexend was designed by educational therapist Bonnie Shaver-Troup and type designer Thomas Jockin, with reading proficiency as an explicit goal, with wider letterforms and generous spacing intended to reduce visual crowding. It's a clean, modern sans-serif that doesn't look unusual at a glance — which is part of the point. It's Skimora's own interface font for exactly that reason: it reads well without calling attention to itself.

Atkinson Hyperlegible

Atkinson Hyperlegible was made by the Braille Institute, and named after its founder, specifically for readers with low vision, with an emphasis on making easily-confused characters (like a capital I, lowercase l, and the number 1) clearly distinct from each other at a glance. If letters blurring into each other is your specific problem, this is the one built directly to address it.

OpenDyslexic

OpenDyslexic is an open-source typeface Abbie Gonzalez released in 2011, designed with dyslexia in mind, using heavier weighting at the bottom of each letter intended to reduce letter-swapping and improve a sense of "grounding" on the line. It looks the most different from a standard font of the three. The research on whether it measurably improves reading for people with dyslexia is mixed — some studies find no significant comprehension advantage over a plain sans-serif — but plenty of individual readers report a strong personal preference for it. It's free to try in Skimora and works offline.

Comic Sans

Comic Sans has an unusual reputation, but its irregular, almost hand-drawn letterforms are genuinely preferred by some readers, including some readers with dyslexia, for the same reason OpenDyslexic is: the letters are easier to tell apart. Skimora doesn't bundle it — it uses your computer's own copy, so it works only if your system has it installed.

How to actually choose

None of these outperforms the others for every reader; that's exactly why Skimora offers a choice instead of picking one for you. Try each on something you actually want to read — the difference is often more obvious after a paragraph than in a single line of test text — and keep whichever one made reading feel easier for you specifically.