For some reason, many graphics software companies seem to think you cannot sell a clipart or graphics collection without some free fonts. The problem
is, while there are thousands of fonts, it seems like all of the companies like the same 100 or so and include them with their product.That would be all well and good if they all licensed the real fonts. Without
getting technical, it's like buying a Rolex watch at a fine store or a knock-off from a street vendor. The knock-off looks the same and works similar, but probably wouldn't actually say Rolex on it's face. The same
thing works with fonts. Rather than license the real fonts, it's cheaper to get copies of the fonts and use different names for them. I'm not an attorney, but as I understand it, you can trademark the name of a font and
a typestyle, but not the actual appearance of the font itself. That means I could take the font Helvetica and put it out under the name DOUG. It would be just like Helvetica, but it's not the real thing.
That
may not matter much to you, but what happens is you end up with 5 copies of the same font with different names on your hard drive. That does 2 things. First, it wastes hard drive space. Second, having 1000 fonts
installed all at once slows down your computer due to the extra resources it takes since Windows loads all of the fonts installed so they will ready for use in any program.
A good rule of thumb, no matter which
programs you use, limit your fonts to 200 at the absolute most. You probably use only 10 to 15 fonts on a regular basis anyway and you can always install one for a particular purpose and then take it out. You
might also consider using a font program.
My other complaint is that some programs won't even let you decide if you want to install the fonts it comes with. They just do it automatically when you install the main
program. Let me be clear in saying I don't mind getting something for free and I'm sure it costs more to license the real fonts. On the other hand, if I already own that Rolex watch, I'm not going to wear
the knockoff anyway so what's the point of having it.
