Many foundries like to give you an option to license a font in different formats and customers always ask which format is better. The answer is that your decision should be based on the programs that you will be using the fonts in.
Here are some suggestions on choosing the right desktop format.
OpenType (.otf) fonts typically have additional features that can only be accessed by programs that support them. OpenType works best in software like Adobe® Illustrator® and Adobe® InDesign®.
Although Microsoft Word 2010 supports some OpenType features, not all characters can be accessed if the font has a massive amount of alternates. For example, trying to access all the alternate swashes in Feel Script in PowerPoint would be painful. Don’t do it.
Also, you’ll only be disappointed further because OpenType fonts don’t embed well in PowerPoint.
If your workflow includes Microsoft Office programs, like Excel and Powerpoint, then we recommend licensing TrueType formats over OpenType. And if the font doesn’t have a TrueType version, contact us and we can suggest an alternate typeface that may work for you.
We’re introducing a new series for buyers. Every month we will pick two foundries from FontShop and highlight key points that you should pay attention to in their EULA.
The first foundry we’ll highlight is OurType because of their exceptional basic EULA that allows web and mobile embedding. Yes, I said their basic EULA allows you to embed the font you licensed into one (1) website and one (1) mobile app. The standard license also allows embedding the fonts into PDFs and e-Publications! Since OurType delivers OpenType, TrueType, and EOT/WOFF files with their product you’ll have everything that you’ll need to create documents, a web site, and a mobile app.
Now for the fun part. The basic license allows OurType fonts to be used in a single (1) location for up to 5 users, but you can extend the license to support additional locations and users. You can not share the fonts with third parties that do not have a license for the same fonts. And you can not send the font files to a service bureau or a printer, but you can deliver your files as press-ready PDFs with the fonts embedded. If your website or mobile app allows users to create content using the font, then an additional license (Online Editing-Publishing) will need to be issued.
Phew! Hope you got all of that. If you have additional questions you can always email FontShop’s Support Team for help.
EULA highlights will be posted every other Monday. Stay tuned for Dalton Maag.
While we have occasional promotions for new fonts, we have ongoing discounts for students, teachers, and non-profit organizations.
For students and teachers, you can use the promotion code “EDUCATE10″ to take of 10% off your cart. This discount automatically works for school emails ending in .edu, but if your school email has a different ending, just send our Sales & Support team an email and we’ll get you set up!
For non-profit organizations, you can use the promotion code “NONPROFIT” to take of 10% off your cart. This discount automatically works for emails ending in .org.
April 29, 2013 – 10:00 AM
If you work on a Mac, you’re probably familiar with the default font management application, FontBook (not to be confused with the FontBook App!). Sometimes, a “Font Validation” window will pop-up when trying to install your newly licensed font — don’t panic. There is nothing actually wrong with your font file even if you find errors listed such as issues with “kern table structure and contents”.
Our suggestion? Go ahead and select the font when the Font Validation window pops up and install the font; your font will still work properly within the programs you intend to use them in. The software is just acting overly cautious with the font files — the same font files will install successfully on Windows without a validation error as Windows does not have a default font management application like FontBook. If you’re still unsure about it, you can send our Sales & Support team an email and we can install and test the fonts from your order for you before you commit to ignoring the Font Validation window.
April 22, 2013 – 10:00 AM
When licensing a webfont in EOT/WOFF formats, web licensing is based on the traffic the website it will be used for generates, or in other words, the website’s average pageviews per month. If you’re not sure whether or not you have a webfont in your cart, read our “Buyer’s Guide: Am I buying a webfont?” post to learn more about buying webfonts.
Once you have a webfont in your cart, you’ll notice that you won’t be entering the number of users you need to license (that’s generally for desktop licensing), but instead you’ll be choosing from three different pricing tiers: Personal, Business, or Professional.
A common question we get is: “My company’s website doesn’t generate more than 500,000 pageviews per month. Do I still have to purchase the Business tier or can I purchase the Personal tier?”
The answer is: choose the tier that best suits your needs based on the pageviews per month listed. These names — Personal, Business, and Professional — are just the tier names and do not refer to what type of website you will be using the fonts for. For example, if you’re a small business whose website traffic does not exceed 500,000 pageviews per month yet, choose the “Personal” tier.
If you need to license your webfonts for more than 50 million pageviews per month, please contact our Sales & Support team and we’ll get you set up with the licensing you need.
April 15, 2013 – 10:00 AM
Do you remember seeing something you loved in one of our newsletters, but don’t remember what it was? If you didn’t bookmark or favorite the font or take a screenshot of something for us to identify for you, try checking our Newsletter Archive. After every newsletter is lovingly put together and sent out to those waiting for new fonts in their inboxes, we post a version online that you can share with others or go back to browse through. Our Newsletter Archive goes back almost a decade, so you can even have fun looking at the evolution of FontShop Newsletters!
Attending TYPO SF this week? Look for the contrasting color combination of yellow and black this Thursday and Friday to find the FontShop table! Meet our Sales & Support team, Mayene and Theresa, during your breaks or in between speakers — if you have any burning questions about fonts or a font emergency, run over and let us know!
You’ll also be able to play with the FontShop Plugin as well as the FontBook app if you don’t have it already and comparatively flip through pages of an ancient FontBook. Stop by and say hello and pick up goodies while they last!
March 25, 2013 – 10:00 AM
From time to time, fonts go on sale or a foundry decides to promote some of their new fonts with introductory pricing. Whenever this happens, you can check on any current promotions on our New & Noteworthy pinboard or when we post about New Fonts every Tuesday.
Promotional pricing is already applied to fonts — no need to enter a promocode during checkout. When specific fonts go on sale, the price reflects its sale price and will revert back to its normal price whenever the promotion ends.
March 18, 2013 – 10:00 AM
Are you having trouble checking out? When you click “Checkout” in your cart, does the page seem to hang for a bit or does the page just refresh without moving forward? Are you staring at a blank page waiting for something to load?
Sometimes, your browser just isn’t having a good day. When you’re experiencing difficulties with your cart or checking out on FontShop, we recommend first trying to place your order in a different browser.
There are three pages during checkout:
Your Cart and Payment Information — these are the first two pages you’ll go through. To move forward from Your Cart, you’ll click a green button that says “Checkout”, which will take you to the Payment Information page. Once you enter your payment information, you’ll click a green button that says “Review Order” (if the button is grayed out and not green, double-check to make sure all your payment details have been entered correctly). If the checkout process hangs on either of these pages, try placing your order in a different browser. You haven’t actually submitted payment on either of these pages, so you will not get charged if your browser hangs after you click “Review Order”.
Order Confirmation — this is the last page during the checkout process where you can double-check to make sure you’re getting the right fonts, the correct format, and licensing the fonts for the number of users you need to support. To place your order, you’ll click a green button that says “Purchase”. After this, don’t close your browser yet! The next page you should see is your “Purchase Complete!” page where you can download your fonts. If you don’t arrive at this page, you can contact us to see if your order went through or not. We’ll let you know and send you your fonts if you weren’t able to download them after a successful order.
If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to email the Sales & Support Team or call!
March 11, 2013 – 10:00 AM
Sometimes you see a font and need to have it, but you don’t know what font it is. That’s where FontShop‘s Research Team comes in.
If you are looking for a specific font, visit our Font Identification and Type Research page and fill out the form the best you can — the more information we have about the font you’re looking for, the better we’ll be able to assist you! if you have an example of the font you’re looking for, upload an image through our form or send us a link to the image and we can take a look at it; if we have that font available, we’ll be able to direct you to it, otherwise we’ll let you know of any similar fonts you might like as alternatives. If you don’t have an image, don’t worry (we know the feeling of having the font’s name right on the tip of your tongue but not being able to say it): describe the kind of font you’re looking for and we’ll give you recommendations for fonts that we think you’ll like. One of them might be the exact font you’re looking for!
You can also email FontShop’s Research Team directly with any information, images, or descriptions that may help us help you!
While FF Chartwell is a really cool font that you might want, it is also one of the most complex fonts we have available on FontShop — you may need to do a bit of research before and after licensing this font.
The #1 question you should ask yourself before buying and downloading FF Chartwell is: what program do I intend to use the font in?
If you’ll be using the font in design programs (such as Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop), you’re usually good to go. As long as the program can handle stylistic sets and contextual alternates, you’ll be able to use FF Chartwell. Of course, there are exceptions: most notably, color versions do not work when using QuarkXPress. Also, FF Chartwell Bars and FF Chartwell Bars Vertical are the only styles that are currently compatible with iWorks.
One of the best things you can do before getting your hands on this particular typeface is to read the FF Chartwell User Manual. FontFont has also dedicated a few pages on using FF Chartwell, including a video on How to Use FF Chartwell.
Our type expert, David, also put together a series last year on using FF Chartwell, which you can find collected on our In Your Face: FF Chartwell Pinterest board.
February 25, 2013 – 2:21 PM
Are your fonts looking garbled or acting wonky for no reason? Do you think it’s possibly the new font that you installed causing issues, even though it worked perfectly last week? Or are fonts mysteriously missing from your drop down menu in one program, but appear in another? If you said yes to any of the above questions then you may have to clean your Font Cache.
Here are some ways to clean your cache, please note that you will have to restart your computer after cleaning. So, save and quit all programs beforehand.
Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7
The Windows operating system has a font cache file that is located here:
C:\Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT
Delete this file, and restart your system. A new FNTCACHE.DAT file will be created on startup.
Mac OS X
Our support team recommends Font Finagler or Font Nuke to help cleanse your system’s cache. Check out our help section for more details on how to use Font Finagler to clear your Font Cache.
Once you’ve cleared your font cache, you’ll want to open a few programs to make sure that your fonts are behaving. Everything should be back to normal, but if it isn’t you can always contact FontShop for help.
By Theresa dela Cruz
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Also posted in Buyer's Guide
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Tagged 7, Cache Cleaning, Font Cache, Font Finagler, Font Nuke, Help, Mac, Missing Fonts, OS X, PC, Support, Vista, Windows, XP
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February 18, 2013 – 12:58 PM
For many of the desktop fonts available, you can license up to 1,000 users for the fonts online. If you need to license more than 1,000 users for the fonts you’re interested, contact us and we can let you know the costs for larger Multi-User Licenses.
Quotes are easily obtained once you’ve added the items you need to purchase to the cart. Desktop fonts are licensed in blocks of users; you will have to enter the number of computers that you will need to support, and the cart will automatically recalculate your subtotal if necessary. The default number of users is the cost of a basic license.
Web licensing is based on the number of pageviews per month the website you’ll be using the fonts on generates. Pricing for webfonts are based in tiers of up to 500000 pageviews per month (pvm), 5 million pvm, or 50 million pvm. If your website is super popular and the traffic it generates is over 50 million pvm, let us know and we can provide quotes based on your needs.
Be sure to double check the End User License Agreement before licensing font. End User License Agreements, EULAs for short, are rules to follow when you want to use a font. You’ll want to keep in mind that you are not purchasing the typeface itself, but a license to use the font software. Because we have 100+ foundries that have their own EULA and you might not want to read every single one, we added a shortcut to a product’s EULA at the bottom of their page.
If your company is growing, you can always extend your license to support additional computers by contacting us. We’ll also answer any additional questions you may have before your purchase.
February 11, 2013 – 9:40 AM
Typically, webfonts are available in EOT and WOFF formats — if you don’t know what these formats are, you can check out our “What is EOT and WOFF?“ post.
FontShop‘s webfont selection is limited to the formats that the foundries supply and is not available in TTF or SVG formats. Under many of the foundries’ licensing terms, converting fonts to other formats for web use is not allowed. Always double-check a foundry’s End User License Agreement to be sure what is and isn’t allowed.
February 4, 2013 – 11:00 AM
When you’re searching for fonts on FontShop, sometimes you’ll see webfonts in your search results. For example, if you search for “FF DIN” only, “FF DIN Web” may come up down the list, too:
Keep in mind that desktop fonts and webfonts are not the same! Desktop licensing and web licensing are completely separate, so if you’re planning on using something like FF DIN for a big project that includes print materials and a shiny new website, you’ll need to license both the desktop version (OpenType or TrueType format) and the web version (EOT and WOFF formats).
If you have only purchased a webfont, you will not be able to install the webfonts on your computer. Webfont formats — EOT and WOFF — cannot be installed on Macs or PCs. A webfont will not work in desktop programs like InDesign or Microsoft Word.
If you need a version to install on your computer for mockups or wireframes (in Photoshop or Illustrator, for example), you can use our Plugin to test out fonts in Adobe® Creative Suite® — it’s free and easy to use!
By Mayene de Leon
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Also posted in Buyer's Guide, Web Fonts
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Tagged adobe creative suite, EOT, ff din, ff din web, FontShop, fontshop plugin, illustrator, Photoshop, Plugin, webfonts, woff
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Here are some suggestions on choosing the right desktop format.
