Almost every font on this site is under the SIL Open Font License. It is two pages long, it is written in plainer English than most licences, and almost nobody reads it — so the same four questions come up again and again, usually with the wrong answer attached.
This is not legal advice. It is a description of what the licence text says, with the parts people get wrong pointed at.
Yes: commercial work, with no fee and no credit
You can use an OFL font in paid client work, in a product you sell, in an advertisement, in a film, in a book, on packaging and on a website. There is no fee, no registration and no attribution requirement — you do not have to credit the designer anywhere a reader can see. Many people do anyway, and that is a courtesy rather than an obligation.
Yes: logos and trademarks
This is the one that gets asked most and doubted most. You can set a logo in an OFL font and trademark the result. The licence covers the font software — the file — not the shapes you make with it. Setting a word in a typeface does not give the typeface designer a claim on your mark, and the OFL does not attempt to create one.
What you cannot do is claim the font itself. Trademarking your logo is fine; trademarking the typeface is not yours to do.
Yes: modify it
You can open the file, change the letters, add characters, subset it down to the twenty glyphs your site actually uses, and ship the result. Subsetting is a modification in the licence’s terms and it is entirely permitted — it is what every web font service does.
Two conditions come with modifying. The modified version stays under the OFL: you cannot take an open font, change it, and release the result under a closed licence. And if the original carries a Reserved Font Name, your version has to be called something else. That is the condition people trip over.
The Reserved Font Name
Some OFL fonts reserve their name. If a font’s licence names it as reserved, any modified version you distribute must not use that name. You may say what it was derived from, but the modified file cannot go out calling itself the original.
The reason is reputational rather than commercial: it stops a broken or half-finished derivative circulating under the designer’s name. It only applies when you distribute a modified version. Subsetting a font for your own site and serving it is not distribution in the sense the licence means, and nobody has ever been troubled by it.
No: selling the font file on its own
This is the only genuine prohibition. You cannot sell an OFL font by itself, and you cannot sell a bundle whose value is the fonts — a "1,000 fonts for $19" pack of open fonts is what the clause exists to prevent. Selling something you made with the font is entirely fine, and so is selling software that happens to include it.
The condition that travels with the file
When you pass the font file on — bundling it in an app, putting it on a server, including it in a template you sell — the licence and the copyright notice have to go with it. That is why every download on this site has the licence file inside the zip, and why removing it before you redistribute is the one easy way to be in breach without meaning to be. The licences page has the full text and the differences between the OFL, the Apache license and the UFL.
The short version
- Sell work made with it: yes.
- Use it in a logo and trademark that logo: yes.
- Credit the designer: not required.
- Modify or subset it: yes, staying under the OFL, and renaming it if the name is reserved.
- Sell the font file itself: no.
- Keep the licence with the file when you pass it on: required.
Shipping the font inside something you sell
Bundling is allowed, and it is the case people most often assume is forbidden. A game with the font in its assets, an app that embeds it, a WordPress theme or a Canva template that ships with the file, a piece of hardware with the font in its firmware — all fine, all without a fee.
The obligation is the same one as everywhere else: the licence text travels with the font file. In practice that is a text file in the same folder, or a licences page in the app’s about screen. What you may not do is sell the font on its own, or as the main thing somebody is paying for.
Documents, PDFs and ebooks
Embedding a font in a document is explicitly permitted, and a PDF exporter subsetting the font on the way in is a normal, licensed use rather than a modification anybody has to declare. That covers a CV, a contract, a book laid out for print, and an EPUB with the font inside it.
The same applies to a client deliverable. You may hand over the font file itself along with the artwork, which is not true of most commercial licences — see font licensing for client work for what changes when a project mixes the two.
If you are still unsure
Read the file. Every download on this site contains the actual licence text for that family, and it is two pages of plain English rather than a wall of legalese. Two things to look for: whether the family declares a Reserved Font Name, which affects what a modified copy may be called, and the copyright line, which names the designer.
And if the question is about a font you found somewhere else: "free for personal use" is not this licence and not any open licence. It means the file may not be passed on at all, which is why nothing of the kind is in this archive.