can I use this adobe font?

[fontlaura]

My Mac has Adobe Garamond Pro installed on it as part of the OS, I assume. So I purchased that. But can I use it for business purposes? Like on flyers or on my website?

I am aware some of the EULA's were changed recently and perhaps that may affect things... I got my Mac in 2010 with the font installed and upgraded to Mavericks this year (2014) and the font is still installed.

[hans-g.]

Hello Laura,

please "investigate" these links, I for my part couldn't find a restriction (and you payed forit finally):

http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/pdfs/AdobeGaramondPro.pdf

http://www.adobe.com/type/opentype/

http://www.adobe.com/products/type/opentype/opentype-faq.html

and as a global information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamond

Good luck!

Hans-Günter

[fontlaura]

Thanks for those links, Hans! I'll read through them.

[Dov Isaacs]

Adobe Garamond Pro certainly is not installed as part of any operating system installation. Parts of that typeface family may have been installed as part of installation of Adobe applications, though.

Assuming that those fonts were legally installed either bundled with Adobe applications or licensed separately, there is no restriction in using the fonts in your published materials with the exception of using the fonts themselves as part of a product (such as part of an executable game) or as live type on a web page without additional licensing.

          - Dov

[fontlaura]

Thanks Dov! That didn't occur to me for some reason. Of course it was because of the Creative Suite products I downloaded prior to the whole cloud-based thing. These were definitely legally installed with the Adobe software I purchased.

So my only remaining question really is what's the difference between me using them on a published material (like a magazine or a flyer) to promote my business and me using them on a web page (like as the default font on my website) to promote my business? I see these both as being associated with profiting from the use of the font. So I would think either both are allowed or both aren't allowed. Am I incorrect in this assumption?

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

There is a big difference. The issue is not “profiting from use of the font” but rather, effective redistribution of the font. For printed or even PDF or PostScript use of the font this isn't an issue. Although the font is embedded in such files, the “full font” including all metrics is not in those files. On the other hand, unless you are doing a raster display on a web page using such fonts (which is not a problem in terms of the licensing), the font has to be downloaded as part of the stream of data to the web browser. That is what is not permitted with a normal license. Adobe does have provision for web use of some of its fonts via TypeKit, part of the Creative Cloud offering.

          - Dov

[fontlaura]

Thank you, Dov. That makes perfect sense. I had no idea that's how fonts worked on websites. I'll look into TypeKit, consider purchasing the font I want, and also consider just switching to another font that is available for use on the web and commercially if I can find one that works for my needs. Thanks again for bearing with my ignorance and helping me figure this out!