Guides · 11 entries
What should you know before using a free font?
Mostly the licence and the loading strategy. These 11 guides answer one question each, lead with the answer, and cite the licence texts and standards they rely on. They are general information, not legal advice.
-
Can I use Google Fonts commercially?
Yes. Every family in the Google Fonts library is published under an open licence: the SIL Open Font License, Apache 2.0 or the Ubuntu Font Licence. All three allow commercial websites, print, logos, client work and apps. The main limit is that OFL fonts cannot be sold on their own.
-
What is the SIL Open Font License?
The SIL Open Font License (OFL) 1.1 is a free licence for fonts published by SIL International in 2007. It lets anyone use, modify, embed and redistribute a font, including commercially, on five conditions; the best known is that the font may not be sold by itself.
-
Can I use a free font in a logo?
Yes, if the font is under an open licence such as the OFL, Apache 2.0 or the Ubuntu Font Licence. A logo is a document made with the font, which these licences do not restrict. What you cannot get is exclusivity: anyone else may use the same font.
-
What is the difference between a web font licence and a desktop font licence?
A desktop licence lets you install a font on a set number of computers to make documents; a web licence lets you serve the font file to visitors' browsers, often capped by pageviews. Open licences such as the OFL make no such split: one licence covers every use.
-
What is a variable font?
A variable font is a single font file that contains a continuous range of styles along one or more axes, such as weight (wght) from 100 to 900, instead of one file per style. On 15 October 2026, 561 of the 1,950 Google Fonts families shipped as variable fonts.
-
How do I make Korean or CJK web fonts load fast?
Split the font into many small files by Unicode range and let the browser download only the slices a page uses. Google Fonts already does this: on 16 October 2026 one weight of Noto Sans KR was served as 124 unicode-range slices. When self-hosting, subset with fontTools and declare unicode-range.
-
Should I self-host Google Fonts for GDPR?
If your site serves visitors in the EU or UK, self-hosting is the low-risk choice. Linking to the Google Fonts API sends each visitor's IP address to Google, and a Munich court held in January 2022 that doing so without consent breached the GDPR. Self-hosting sends nothing to Google.
-
How do you pair two fonts?
Choose the body font first for reading comfort and script coverage, then pick a heading font that contrasts in one clear way (classification, weight or width) while sharing proportions such as x-height and line spacing. Test the pair at real sizes with real text before committing.
-
How do I choose a font for a user interface?
Pick a font that stays legible at 12 to 16 px, distinguishes look-alike characters (I, l, 1, O, 0), offers tabular numerals and at least four weights, covers every language you ship, and has a licence that allows embedding in apps. Then test it with your real interface text.
-
How do I stop web fonts from causing layout shift?
Use font-display: swap or optional, preload only the one or two critical font files, and make the fallback font occupy the same space with the size-adjust, ascent-override and descent-override descriptors. Then the swap from fallback to web font barely moves anything.
-
What is the difference between the OFL, Apache 2.0 and the Ubuntu Font Licence?
All three let you use fonts commercially, embed them and modify them. The OFL bans selling the font by itself and protects Reserved Font Names; Apache 2.0 is a general software licence that asks you to keep notices and mark changes; the Ubuntu Font Licence adds strict renaming rules for modified versions.
Subscribe: RSS feed · Questions we plan to answer next are tracked from reader mail via the contact page.