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Thai National fonts (Thai: ฟอนต์แห่งชาติ; rtgs: [font] haeng chat), or colloquially SIPA fonts (Thai: ฟอนต์ซิป้า), are a group of thirteen Thai-Roman fonts distributed and used by the Government of Thailand as public and official fonts after they won a national competition held in 2007. The fonts and all of their subsequently developed versions are released by the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Public Organisation), or SIPA, together with the Department of Intellectual Property through f0nt.com, and can be downloaded freely on the website.
The competition was organised by Abhisit Vejjajiva's Council of Ministers, with a view to replacing all existing fonts the Thai Government bought from private sector, including Microsoft's "Angsana New", "Browallia New", "Cordia New" and "EucrosiaUPC" which were extensively used at that time, with the fonts created by Thai nationals. The competition was part of the project proposed by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, called the "Standard Fonts for Thai Public Sectors" Project (โครงการฟอนต์มาตรฐานราชการไทย). The Ministry was quoted as saying: "...Various fonts are now used among the public agencies, that's why the state papers have never become standard. The fonts are also from the private companies which monopolise the rights over them, so we cannot use them as much as we should...".
On 7 September 2010, the Council of Ministers officially announced the thirteen fonts as the public fonts, naming them the "national fonts". The public agencies were ordered to use these fonts, especially "TH Sarabun PSK", in their state papers. They were required to cease to use the private sector's fonts by 5 December 2010, Bhumibol Adulyadej's 83rd birthday anniversary. The legislative branch and the judicial branch were also asked for cooperation.
The font "TH Sarabun PSK" is used in the Government Gazette of Thailand on and from January, 2011, replacing "Angsana New". The Gazette's first volume using such font is volume 128, part 1 A, dated January 7, 2011, in which the "Ministerial Regulation Determining the Criteria and Procedure for Acknowledging the Aircraft Type Certificates or Supplementary Type Certificates issues by the State Parties to the Conventions governing the Application for Certificates of Airworthiness or by the States with which Thailand has adopted the similar Agreements, BE 2553 (2010)" ("กฎกระทรวงกำหนดหลักเกณฑ์และวิธีการรับรองใบรับรองแบบอากาศยานหรือใบรับรองแบบส่วนเพิ่มเติมที่ออกโดยรัฐภาคีแห่งอนุสัญญาหรือประเทศที่ได้ทำความตกลงกับประเทศไทย เพื่อขอใบสำคัญสมควรเดินอากาศ พ.ศ. 2553") was published.
The font "TH Sarabun PSK" is also used on the current logo of Thai Wikipedia. This version of the logo was designed by Pratya Singto (ปรัชญา สิงห์โต), a graphic designer who runs f0nt.com, and was adopted by the Community as it won a competition in 2008.
The thirteen fonts are: