Where can I download Free, Royalty Free, Fonts?
Community Forums/General Help/Where can I download Free, Royalty Free, Fonts?
| ||
| I've tried googling it, but it hasn't worked out so well. Do any of you know of any TRUST WORTHY sites, that offer royalty free fonts that can be used in commercial products(Like a game ;) that are free of charge, or cost only a small sum? I am mainly looking for a version of the Verdana font. ARE the fonts in Microsoft, such as the Verdana font included in the system folder CopyRighted? Thanks! |
| ||
| Agree, even on the sites where you have to pay there is the question if it really can be trusted. What I like to do under BlitzMax is to use the Font Machine Editor wich you can download if you already own Blide Plus. It is a tool to create stunning Bitmap Fonts by making use of normal TTF Fonts at first and there is a module in the package wich you can use in Blitzmax that you can import the bitmap font and type text using simple commands. Here is an example of what the tool with just a simple TTF font:  You try a demo version wich is available at www.blide.org. I searched for royalty fonts in the past as well and gave up the search and spend some time to create some original fonts myself with Font Machine. |
| ||
| Aenigma Fonts are free, and (in my tasteless opinion) pretty. Their site doesn't seem to work but the keywords return results on several websites, which I guess can be expected to carry other free fonts as well. Windows system fonts aren't necessarily free to distribute, but you can reasonably expect certain fonts to already be installed on the vast majority of target machines: http://www.kayskreations.net/fonts/fonttb.html I would imagine it's better to use bitmap fonts in most circumstances though. |
| ||
| Well, many sites like 1001fonts, dafonts and the topmost that come up when you search "free fonts" are ok...the problem is usually within the ZIP file of the fonts. Most of them come with a LICENSE.TXT that tells you what you can and can't do with the font file. There are many artists that publish all their typographic families free of cost. Those famous font sites usually have links to their pages where they state terms of use and other stuff like that (or an email where you can contact them). |
| ||
| Aenigma Fonts definitely doesn't work, they might have even taken the site down :( Windows system fonts aren't necessarily free to distribute, but you can reasonably expect certain fonts to already be installed on the vast majority of target machines: Although I can reasonably expect certain fonts to be there, I still would need to get the right file path to be able to load them. Also with Vista and Win7 out, some of the ones on that list might not be standard anymore. What I want to do is include all of the fonts I want to use in the folder along with the game, to make absolutely sure that they are always loaded. I'll check out blide, see what that has to offer, and I'll also search the site for whoever it was that made JuicyFonts, and see what thats about. Thanks for the Suggestion Kryzon. I'll check it out. Lol, who would have thought it would be so hard to find a simple font? Thanks, and if anyone does manage to find some royalty free fonts, please let me know :) |
| ||
| Well Blide is a bit too expensive for me, especially since all I really want is the Font Machine. I'll poke around for other options. |
| ||
| http://www.dafont.com has hundreds of free fonts (and a nice way of previewing them by entering your own text). You just have to check for each font (in the top-right corner of the font description box and/or in the downloaded files), because they also have non-free fonts. (This is what Kryzon already said but I thought I'd say it again just to be sure!) Edit: Ok for use in a commercial game the number of fonts may be smaller but I guess there are still quite a few on that site. |
| ||
| Oky doke. Checking out the site near :) I also downloaded FontForge in case I do end up having to make my own. ;Edit. I think Dafont will work out! Now I just have to decide which one, lol! |
| ||
| For Verdana, Bitstream Vera is the best alternative I've found, and it's truly free to use. Most of the fonts people describe as "free" are not licensed to be used in games, and if you tried to apply for a license, you'd get a bill of something like $2,000 per font per style. Bitstream Vera: http://www.gnome.org/fonts/ If you need more fonts than that, the only other fonts I know of which are truly free, and licensed for use in games come from Ray Larabie. Both his free and paid fonts are properly licensed, and there are no additional charges. You should also be aware that most font foundries view a bitmap font as an alternative font format, and will expect you to purchase the same license as if you were distributing the TTF files. So while Digital Anime's suggestion has merit in technical terms (bitmap fonts can be more intricate and are definitely more consistent) they will not change any licensing conditions. |
| ||
| http://fontleech.com/ |
| ||
| I went to Microcenter and was just bumming around the bargain software bin, and found 3000 fonts on disk for $1.00. Came with a nice font browser and all are free to use. Try going to your local computer store and see what you can find. |
| ||
| Well Blide is a bit too expensive for me, especially since all I really want BLIde's well worth the cost but as you only want Font Machine, you could try FONText (do a forum search) as its now free and does the same thing. I'm not sure if it comes with Blitzmax code, though. I think it might do.is the Font Machine. I'll poke around for other options. [edit] http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=65909 |
| ||
| Sauer: The problem there is that in my experience the majority of those "free fonts" disks could more appropriately be called "stolen fonts" -- I've had a few as well, and the majority of fonts turned out to be ripped commercial fonts with the copyright information stripped out... But the actual creator / copyright holder can still sue you if you'd actually use one of them... |
| ||
| This worked. Thanks Gabriel! I'll check out FONText as well, see what its about. And http://fontleech.com/ looks like it has a good selection, but I still have to go over the license agreement for them. Try going to your local computer store and see what you can find. Not much of an option. The nearest local computer store is about an hour and a half away :) I do live on a farm after all, lol. Thanks everyone! The suggestions and advice is much appreciated! |
| ||
| If you need something to make bitmap fonts with for free, big10p's excellent lil Juicy Fonts is available also. And free. As in beer. |
| ||
| Nifty. I might as well check that out as well :) Thanks everyone! |
| ||
| http://www.openfontlibrary.org/ |
| ||
| Nifty! Thanks for the link Mustang, investigating now :) |
| ||
| Have one funny story about this topic as well now. As I'm thinking about finishing a game soon, and probably go commercial I checked what Font I used in my logo and wondered if it was royaltyfree yes/no. I looked up the font (GreyWolf 2.0) on the website where I got it for free (www.1001fonts.com) and it was put there as freeware, but the textfile included told that in case I want to use it for commercial purposes I should ask for permission. I googled a lot for the correct website of the owner together with a correct email address and ended up here. http://home.comcast.net/~greywolfwebworks/ I mailed to him with the question if I may use his Font in my logo for commercial purposes with a link to my logo. He mailed back the same day with the answer that it's problem and that I may use the font free of charge. He is normally used that people don't even bother to ask him for permission. All he asked me in return was if I could send him an example on how the logo was used. So who knows his fonts can help you guys as well in your projects. @Werdna So if you find a nice font just try to find the copyrightholder and send him/her a mail. It doesn't always mean you have to pay a lot of $$$ when a font a has a copyright on it. It never hurts to ask. |
| ||
| download fontforge if you want make your own ttfs :) then if you want bitmap fonts you can decorate your own ttf in photoshop or gimp etc... |
   |