When something is free, there’s often a hidden downside and free fonts are no exception. Free fonts are available at hundreds of sites on the web. In a web search, typing free before the name of a font will usually produce more hits that you can handle. With prices of up to several hundred dollars for a font family, it’s tempting to click one of the links in search of a free alternative.
Despite that urge to save some cash, it’s important to understand the harsh realities of the free font world before you start using “free” fonts.
Commercial Use Limitations
Like other software, fonts (even free ones) have usage licenses. A large majority of free fonts come with a license for personal, but not commercial use. While most free font users don’t read those license agreements, they are just as enforceable as Microsoft, Adobe or Apple software licenses and they need to be respected. In short, be very careful. Using free fonts in commercial projects can lead you down a very risky road to software piracy.
License Compliance Risks
Violating a software license exposes a company or individual creatives to legal and goodwill losses that can exceed the costs of a font license by many thousands of times. So, before you elect to use a font in a project, be sure that you have a clear and clean commercial-use license to do so. That license should cover how you are using the font—in print, digital ads, videos, films, webpages, user interfaces, or on an application server. Font licenses specify numbers of users, devices, servers, products, printed materials, or online impressions, and they often include a date span.
Font Duplicates and Collisions
Free fonts that you load onto your computers can contain font names that duplicate fonts that already reside on the machines. By loading them, you can cause collisions that confuse designers, cause designs and documents to load incorrectly, and render incorrectly. Therefore, before loading new fonts on your computers, make sure they have unique names and font file formats. To avoid collision problems, use a quality font manager like FontAgent.®
Introduction of Malware
Free font websites are often minefields of seemingly safe ads and download buttons. One simple click can bring you to a malicious website or download a “font installer” that is a dangerous program that introduces malware of all kinds onto your computer. Even the most careful and knowledgeable of users can tell stories of how they fell prey to what appeared to be a harmless free font site.
Font Integrity Problems
Designing fonts is like designing timepieces. Imitators who create free and bootleg fonts do not use the same meticulous care as designers who create works of art intended to please the senses and pass the test of time. The cheap knockoffs just don’t look or work like the real deal.
So, what are the telltale signs of inferior fonts? Here are some things to look for:
- Corrupt font files that fail validity checks in your font manager
- Partial families with missing font styles
- Missing family names, font metrics and other metadata that trip up font managers
- Incomplete character sets lacking many special letters and symbols
- Bad or missing kerning pairs that make some letter pairs look too widely or narrowly spaced
- Missing ligatures that join two characters together for readability or language compatibility
- Interline and character spacing problems
- Jagged, rough glyph outlines
- Variations in letter forms and slants that should be consistent
- Inconsistent serifs from glyph to glyph
- Broken type that breaks individual character shapes into multiple pieces
- Variations in character weights
Advantages of Commercial-Grade Fonts
In contrast to low-quality free fonts, commercial-grade fonts have the following design advantages:
- Up-to-date versions of your fonts in standard-compliant formats that work with modern software applications
- Comprehensive styles and families, ligatures, kerning pairs, and character sets
- Outlines with matching smooth curves, straight lines and attractive character and interline spacing
- Consistent glyph shapes and serifs
By purchasing commercial licenses from reputable font vendors, you can:
- Obtain commercial licensing that meets your needs and protects you legally
- Reward font designers so they can continue to produce the fonts you need to create quality designs and documents
- Receive technical support directly from font vendors if something ever goes wrong
Use FontAgent to Quarantine Corrupt Fonts
Want to protect yourself from the dangers of free fonts? Use FontAgent to test your fonts’ integrity to ensure your designs and documents render faithfully, and your computer runs dependably.