How to know which fonts you're allowed to use commercially?

[sebastian2012a]

Hi,

I'm on the latest Illustrator CC and latest Windows 10, and I can't figure out which of the fonts available in Illustrator that I'm licensed to use for which purposes:

Microsoft allows commercial use of all fonts that comes with Windows. And Adobe allows commercial use of Adobe and synced Typekit fonts.

But since I can't figure out which fonts actually come with Adobe, my rule of thumb is never to use anything except typefaces I know are installed in Windows, and fonts marked "Tk" in Illy (I assume it stands for Typekit).

But I saw just now, by accident, that one synced Typekit font is not marked "Tk." So now I wonder how many other Typekit fonts I could use without problems.

Is there any way of knowing exactly which fonts that are okay to use? (It would be really nice to delete all the rest...)

[Test Screen Name]

The only way to know what you can do with a font is to read its license. It can be hard to identify where fonts came from, especially if you've been through many versions of Adobe software. The EXACT SAME FONT FILE may have different licenses according to how you got it.

On no account delete fonts without knowing whether they are needed for other purposes! You can break your system and apps if you remove required fonts.

[Test Screen Name]

Actually, I'd go farther.

Buy fonts and keep a directory organising them into subdirectories by vendor and license.

Do not use any other font.

Install from your purchased directory to the system as needed.

Why? Because it might not be around in future. If it comes with software, a software upgrade could remove it.

Or, if you move to a new computer, it just might not come with the computer. There were fonts included with older versions of Windows and Mac which are no longer included. And the font license doesn't allow copying to the new computer! So it's gone. Avoid this by working with what you paid for.

[sebastian2012a]

"Avoid this by working with what you paid for"

That's what I do -- I pay for Adobe/Typekit.

The problem is I don't know which of the installed fonts actually came with Adobe/Typekit.

So I hope somebody knows that. In the link below, you can see which fonts are included in Creative Suite 6 for instance, but I can't find a similar list for Creative Cloud...

Fonts included in Creative Suite 6 | Adobe Type

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Typekit fonts can be filtered in the Font menu, so you see only them in the menu.

Typekit fonts won't appear as files in your system.

[sebastian2012a]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Monika+Gause  wrote

Typekit fonts can be filtered in the Font menu, so you see only them in the menu.

Typekit fonts won't appear as files in your system.

Thank you again for your help -- this is great!

[Monika Gause]

sebastian2012a  schrieb

"Avoid this by working with what you paid for"

That's what I do -- I pay for Adobe/Typekit.

The potential issue is that Typekit is between you and the foundry that offers the font.

Typekit/Adobe has a contract with them that enables them to license the font to you.

Imagine that the foundry no longer wants to cooperate with Typekit for some reason, then the font is not available to you.

There are stories that this has already happened. It has not happened to me, so I can't comment on it. Therefore some people don't use Typekit fonts in projects they expect to be long-running, such as corporate design or editorial design. For this kind of projects they prefer traditional licensing of fonts.

[sebastian2012a]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Monika+Gause  wrote

sebastian2012a   schrieb

"Avoid this by working with what you paid for"

That's what I do -- I pay for Adobe/Typekit.

The potential issue is that Typekit is between you and the foundry that offers the font.

Typekit/Adobe has a contract with them that enables them to license the font to you.

Imagine that the foundry no longer wants to cooperate with Typekit for some reason, then the font is not available to you.

There are stories that this has already happened. It has not happened to me, so I can't comment on it. Therefore some people don't use Typekit fonts in projects they expect to be long-running, such as corporate design or editorial design. For this kind of projects they prefer traditional licensing of fonts.

Yes, it all depends on your purpose. I always assume that all the software (and social media for that matter) I use stop working next week, so I'm almost never disappointed.

If I were working on a book, I'd pick the most common, portable and widely licensed fonts available. But I'm doing logos at the moment so I'm merely concerned about licensing...

[Test Screen Name]

I think that sums up exactly why I am uncomfortable with typekit. I like to have permanent rights and access to my design elements, I don't like the idea that in 1 year or 5 or 10 that the design can't be quickly revised because a creator revised their license and partner arrangements. It would be like renting stock photos. Of course if your work is made, printed and dead, this is of no importance.

I like to have my fonts in a folder ready for use. Of course over the years MM fonts and more recently type 1 fonts have lost some support: aiming for more than 10 years of any single technology is probably optimistic.

[sebastian2012a]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Test+Screen+Name  wrote

Of course if your work is made, printed and dead, this is of no importance.

I should've mentioned that this is the case for me -- everything I do today is vectorized tomorrow, so...

EDIT: Just opened Illustrator now and my all Typekit fonts were missing and the text in my logos replaced by weird white letters on pink background! Case in point... Illustrator now works and works and looks all over the place, but can't find those Typekit things...