Font embedding flags

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William
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Font embedding flags

Post by William »

Would it be a good idea to make the font embedding flags in a font produced using Scanahand either to be all off or, perhaps preferably, to be a choice of as they are now or all off?

This would mean that people using just Scanahand to make fonts could have access to using those facilities which are only available if all of the embedding flags are off.

For example, the http://typeface.neocracy.org/fonts.html facility.

William Overington

5 December 2008
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Font embedding flags

Post by Erwin Denissen »

It might be an idea but people should be aware of the meaning of such change.

Having all embedding flags unchecked has great impact in embedding licensing rights. Fonts with this setting indicate that they may be embedded and permanently installed on the remote system by an application. The user of the remote system acquires the identical rights, obligations and licenses for that font as the original purchaser of the font, and is subject to the same end-user license agreement, copyright, design patent, and/or trademark as was the original purchaser.

Currently fonts generated with Scanahand may be embedded in documents, but must only be installed temporarily on the remote system. In contrast to Preview & Print fonts, documents containing Editable fonts may be opened "read-write;" editing is permitted, and changes may be saved. This is known as editable embedding.
Erwin Denissen
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William
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Re: Font embedding flags

Post by William »

Thank you for your reply.

It would appear therefore that the default choice should remain as it is.

Maybe a small sub-panel (sub-panel may not be the correct parlance, comments welcome) could be added in a similar manner to the sub-panel for Predefined outlines that is in the File New dialogue panel of FontCreator 5.6. In that sub-panel in FontCreator 5.6 the default is recommended yet an alternative is also provided.

In Scanahand maybe the default choice would be editable embedding and that would be recommended. The alternative of installable embedding could be offered, perhaps with a note about being very wary of using it.

Perhaps the help file could mention the example of needing an installable embedding permission in order to produce a web font and recommend that in such cases a person using Scanahand could produce two fonts from the same artwork, the normal font with editable embedding licensing and another font with a slightly different font name with installable embedding licensing. That second font could be used just by the person who has produced the font to produce a web font.

In that way the licensing of fonts usually produced using Scanahand would be as now, yet users of Scanahand who do not have access to FontCreator 5.6 would also be able to make installable editable fonts so that they could themselves make web fonts which are based on their original artwork.

William Overington

6 December 2008
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