Licensing

Embedding

Embedding is putting a font inside something you distribute — a website, a PDF, an app, a slide deck — rather than expecting the reader to have it installed.

On the web it is what an @font-face rule does: the font file is served from your domain and the visitor’s browser downloads it. In a PDF the glyphs you used are packed into the document. In an app the file is shipped with the binary. All three are embedding, and all three are governed by the licence rather than by the technology.

Open licences permit all of it, which is why the fonts here can be self-hosted without a second thought. Commercial licences frequently do not: a desktop licence typically covers making artwork and not serving the font to visitors, and web fonts are usually sold by page views. Reading which one you bought is dull and considerably less dull than the alternative.

See it in real type

Every one of these is free for commercial work. Set them in your own words on their pages, or side by side in the comparer.

  • Inter

    Rasmus Andersson

    Embedding

    Sans-serif · Variable · 9 weights · OFL · Türkçe

  • IBM Plex Sans

    Mike Abbink, Bold Monday

    Embedding

    Sans-serif · Variable · 7 weights · OFL · Türkçe

Compare these 3 side by side

Every term in the dictionary