Font licensing - can you hand draw/trace over an adobe font for commercial use?

Question

I was wondering if anyone knew if it was ok to take an adobe font in photoshop and trace over it with an apple pencil/stylus for use in commerical projects? I want the text in my art prints to have more of a hand drawn look but I can't really find anything that says this is definitely ok to do (I'm based in the uk - I know laws are different in each country). I know the font licensing help section says it's ok to modify type that has been converted into outlines but I'm technically not converting to outlines, simply tracing over it.

If anyone has any clarification that'd be great!

Molly Doane · Accepted Answer

Hello! There's no problem with you tracing the letters as long as you aren't creating a product that could be considered a derivative of the font. That would be something like creating your own font from the tracings or creating letterform products like fridge magnets. That goes for all the fonts in the Adobe Fonts library.

Hope this helps. —Molly

Imaginerie · Answer

That's what I was about to say, converting to outlines. This specific paragraph is about modifying a font and you would have to outline it first in a vector program to modify it with that program (otherwise fonts cannot be modified that way)..

the important stuff from there is that one:

You can also check the additional terms here...
https://wwwimages2.adobe.com/content/dam/cc/en/legal/servicetou/Adobe_Fonts_Additional_Terms_en_US_20220715.pdf

If you are tracing over them, it's covered by the Adobe licences but that's specific to Adobe, don't do that with any other font without checking first.

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