# 11-point Garamond readable for Createspace book, or too small?



## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

I have so far being using 12 point, and like that I can read it without my glasses. 

But what is the consensus? Is 11-point okay, as it will save me around 30 pages? 

If 11-point is okay for most people, I don't mind using it; if not, I'll switch to 12-point. 

(Added: I'll be using the Garamond that comes with Word, not buying the font from Adobe.)

Also, do you, for the sake of white space (which makes a book more readable), start a new chapter on the recto (right) page?

Thanks.


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## David Penny (Jun 8, 2014)

Personally I like my fonts to be as readable as possible, so I tend to use 12 pt. But then, I use a font called Crimson, which is a paid font but it came with a formatting template for Word.

And yes, I always start a new chapter on the recto page, because that's industry standard, and I think the more I can do to make my book indistinguishable from a traditional publishing house the better. It's all about quality it all aspects, from the smallest to the biggest.


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## MissingAlaska (Apr 28, 2014)

I use Garamond 11 point and, even with bad astigmatism, can read it fine.  I also start a new chapter on the right page (In word, insert a break starting the next section on an odd page) - which makes the text much more professional looking.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

When formatting a paperback have a collection of 21st century paperbacks near to hand and then every time you have a question look up the paperback collection to see if they all do it (new chapters on recto are not the industry standard any more, although some publishers maintain the tradition). Point size will vary by font and if you look at your paperback collection you will probably guess at a point size of 9 or 10 depending on font. I use PT Serif which is a large font, so I use it as 9.5 points. To decide on the point size I printed out a page and held it against the text in my paperback collection. I quickly dropped the 12 point that my CreateSpace novel was in and for my Ingram Spark books was going for point size 10 until adopting PT Serif, which is a bit big at 10 so I dropped down to 9.5.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

I've used 11pt Garamond, but generally I prefer 12pt


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Recto ftw, 11 pt should be fine, Baskerville all day erryday (but you can Garamond if you wanna).


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## KateEllison (Jul 9, 2011)

11 should be fine. I believe that is the size I use in several of mine.


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## meh (Apr 18, 2013)

I prefer 12 pt, but you could probably get away with 11 pt. The issue for me is that it starts to look a bit cheap. Also, for those whose vision is bad (like me), they prefer a slightly larger font. 

You can always try it and get yourself a sample copy to see how it turns out.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Dolphin said:


> Recto ftw, 11 pt should be fine, Baskerville all day erryday (but you can Garamond if you wanna).


Yeah, Baskerville is my poison of choice for print, too.


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## chris56 (Jun 8, 2013)

I use Georgia for all the print books I format.  The subject came up not too long ago in a Facebook group I post in and the majority of authors there favor Georgia as well.


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## evawallace (Aug 7, 2014)

I'm not sure if it's me or an issue with createspace but I uploaded in 14 point Garamond and when I received a copy if the book the point size was tiny, so I uploaded in 16 point and it looked a lot better. Maybe you should upload and order a printed copy and see what you get because it doesn't seem to tally with what you see on your word doc.


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

Agree with Mercia.

I use Georgia 10 pt. I will do odd-page chapter starts for novels with very few chapters, but I abandoned it for my newest since it went above 60+. I couldn't find a single trad paperback in my collection that does it.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

11 point Garamond is the default setting in CreateSpace's Word templates.

I played around with issuing an 11 point edition and a large print edition in 14 point, but I guess no one ever clicks the + button to see the large print edition.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

I don't understand what the big deal is with starting chapters on even pages. Plenty of trad books do this. There's no good reason not to. To me, it looks better than having a blank page before your chapter start.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

There are Garamond fonts and there are Garamond fonts. Here's a site where you can download most of them and many others too.

https://www.fontyukle.net/

Using the Windows-provided Garamond is okay until you use italics. They do not provide an italic font, so Windows slants the regular font, which provides less-than ideal results.

I like Garamond fonts because I see virtually no rivers in the pages I typeset with them both with InDesign and Scribus.

I prefer 12-point, because 11-point can look a bit dim, depending on which variety of Garamond you use.


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## 鬼 (Sep 30, 2012)

I, too, have been starting my books on the recto page according to "industry standard" but upon closer inspection none of the trad books seem to be doing it. So...maybe I'll stop, I guess?


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

Al Stevens said:


> Using the Windows-provided Garamond is okay until you use italics. They do not provide an italic font, so Windows slants the regular font, which provides less-than ideal results.


It seems like the Garamond that comes with the Mac has italics. Or I'm assuming it came with the Mac. It's there anyway.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Al Stevens said:


> There are Garamond fonts and there are Garamond fonts. Here's a site where you can download most of them and many others too.
> 
> https://www.fontyukle.net/


I have a pretty solid notion that a site where you can download the same font free that's for sale in the Adobe store for $35 might not be legit.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

My CS paperback uses 11pt Garamond, front matter is 10pt and fleurons are 9pt. Looks great and readable, and I use bifocals, so I couldn't tell you as far as without glasses because then it would just be a blur. However my beta readers said it was fine, professional looking, and readable. Line spacing is 1.2x. Indents are .25. Headers are also Garamond: 9, footer (page numbers) are 8. My book is trim size 5.25x8, sci-fi/horror (zombie). I compared bestselling zombie genre pbs that I own before designing my own pb. What you might want to do is try to make yours similar to others in your genre.

Btw I stick to old school conventions for print books, including recto and verso standards. I have a blank verso before a recto chapter beginning. This seems good and right to me. It seemed awkward to do it otherwise.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Kat S said:


> I have a pretty solid notion that a site where you can download the same font free that's for sale in the Adobe store for $35 might not be legit.


The Garamond fonts date back to the 17th century, I believe. The Adobe adaptations are all over the web. I can only guess that Adobe doesn't crack down because they don't want to get into an international "derivative work" dispute with all those sites. One doesn't have to use the Adobe Garamond fonts themselves. There are many others in OpenType formats. If you stick with them, you needn't worry about the site's overall legitimacy. Just use the .otf versions, and you're in the clear.

ETA: Wrong! The otf format does not imply license-free fonts. It's the format specification that's open, not fonts prepared with it. .otf fonts have the same licensing issues as .ttf fonts. And 16th Century is correct as someone pointed out.


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

A lot of what you see in the traditional publishing world dovetails with a lot of what is being discussed above: How can they save money by lowering font size and adding chapter heads on verso pages. Which is to say that there is no "right" or "wrong," but there is a certain "feel" that producing a book can provide.

Using a custom typeface, using a larger font size, chapter ornamentation, and opening a chapter on the recto page provide a specific vibe that I think connotes quality. 

But, as noted, industry quality standards are decreasing, so any kind of discussion of the above really is a discussion of taste and artistic design preference.


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## STOHara (Feb 23, 2011)

David Penny said:


> And yes, I always start a new chapter on the recto page, because that's industry standard, and I think the more I can do to make my book indistinguishable from a traditional publishing house the better. It's all about quality it all aspects, from the smallest to the biggest.


I think a sampling of Tom Clancy, John Grisham and Michael Crichton novels will disabuse you of that notion. In my experience it's something reserved for prestige books, and even then only when they're short enough and have few enough chapters that it won't significantly increase the page count.


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## BlairErotica (Mar 1, 2014)

even literary books don't always do the recto. I just finished a Milan Kundera book and an old Scrivers edition of a Hemingway and neither bothered.


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## George Hamilton (Dec 14, 2010)

I have used Garamond 12pt, and it looks fine. I start new chapters on the first odd or even page - as mentioned in a number of replies above, modern day novels do the same.

You mention you are trying to reduce the page count by 30. Make sure that doesn't make the book too thin, as that can make some readers feel the novel is shorter than it actually is. I read a blog recently where an author received negative reviews because of this, and she had to reformat the paperback so that it was thicker, and then increase the price to account for the extra cost, but she still sold more.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Al Stevens said:


> The Garamond fonts date back to the 17th century, I believe. The Adobe adaptations are all over the web. I can only guess that Adobe doesn't crack down because they don't want to get into an international "derivative work" dispute with all those sites. One doesn't have to use the Adobe Garamond fonts themselves. There are many others in OpenType formats. If you stick with them, you needn't worry about the site's overall legitimacy. Just use the .otf versions, and you're in the clear.


16th Century.
In fact body type design hasn't improved since the 16th Century, merely changed.
Yes Garamond or Baskerville (eponymously named Baskerville was an effort in the 17th C to improve on the 16th C eponymously named Caslon).
Georgia is fine, but it appears modern (and therefore a little dated, paradoxically - oops I used an adverb, bad, bad Flay). 
It does have a large x-height so you can use a smaller font size and maintain legibility. On the other hand if you don't give it a little extra leading it can look cramped, so you are back to square one.
Garamond etc. tend to look timeless, so not dated, rather like Trajan for titling (from the eponymously named column).

No need to leave a blank page when you start a chapter unless you want to impress people with your stylish use of empty space (that was not sarcastic).
If this is your intent you can leave larger margins and perhaps a little more leading too.

12pt is a comfortable size. 11pt if you are trying to save space (which is quite legitimate, based on your price point for your print version).


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## AmpersandBookInteriors (Feb 10, 2012)

I use EB Garamond from fontsquirrel in 10.5 pt and I can read that just fine. 

Can I just post my love affair with (at least this version of) Garamond here? It's so pretty.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

David S. said:


> You might want to check your version of Word, or where your fonts came from.


My version of Word is irrelevant. I don't use it to typeset. It's a word processor not a typesetting program. My original fonts came installed into the Windows 7 distribution.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Flay Otters said:


> 12pt is a comfortable size. 11pt if you are trying to save space (which is quite legitimate, based on your price point for your print version).


In the old days, my publisher would do whatever was necessary to increase the width of books. Heavier paper, wider margins, larger fonts and leading, etc. They wanted a wider spine to show more prominently on bookstore shelves. Nowadays a reader doesn't see the physical book until it shows up in the mail.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

I will say that Garamond italics is weird because it appears that some letters are actually more slanted than others.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Flay Otters said:


> No need to leave a blank page when you start a chapter unless you want to impress people with your stylish use of empty space (that was not sarcastic).


Always, friend.

Always.


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## John Van Stry (May 25, 2011)

chris56 said:


> I use Georgia for all the print books I format. The subject came up not too long ago in a Facebook group I post in and the majority of authors there favor Georgia as well.


I use Georgia as well if I'm going to a smaller font size. Haven't had any issues with it.


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Thanks, all.


SevenDays said:


> Yeah, Baskerville is my poison of choice for print, too.


Do you mean Baskerville Old Face? That's the only one I have, it looks interesting, and I would like to try it for my next book.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Richardcrasta said:


> Do you mean Baskerville Old Face? That's the only one I have, it looks interesting, and I would like to try it for my next book.


There are some differences, though I couldn't describe all of them offhand. I believe Old Face is a derivative work from later in the 18th century.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

David S. said:


> Microsoft Word does not slant Garamond instead of providing true italics. If you claim it does then something is very wrong with your version of Word or the installed fonts.


Let me say this again. I don't use Microsoft Word.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

I'm not sure the fonts that came with the system are licensed for this kind of thing. No one has ever raised a fuss about it that I'm aware of, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to do it.

When I made a print edition of my first book, I went with a font from fontsquirrel.com. Cardo is a very nice oldstyle font that shares a common ancestor with Bembo, and it looked terrific in 11pt.


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Lummox JR said:


> I'm not sure the fonts that came with the system are licensed for this kind of thing. No one has ever raised a fuss about it that I'm aware of, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to do it.
> 
> When I made a print edition of my first book, I went with a font from fontsquirrel.com. Cardo is a very nice oldstyle font that shares a common ancestor with Bembo, and it looked terrific in 11pt.


Thanks for the tip. I just downloaded Cardo. I like fontsquirrel, because it doesn't make you go through endless loops, and visual checks, to get your fonts. Fontsquirrel, you rock!

I did notice that Garamond italics (the version I have) are unsatisfactory, especially in long quotes. Will change to a new font for next book.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Lummox JR said:


> I'm not sure the fonts that came with the system are licensed for this kind of thing. No one has ever raised a fuss about it that I'm aware of, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to do it.


They are licensed for the production of the end product (e.g. a Word file if you use that method for CreateSpace) but not for embedding the fonts (as is required under Ingram Spark's PDF only submission rules). The problem is that Windows and probably all other operating systems add a font provided by an application to the whole system. E.g., I could not work out why my then favourite font of Arial Narrow was not available on my reinstall of Windows and finally worked out that it is installed as part of Microsoft Word. So if I produce a file in Word and upload it to CreateSpace it is (under US law) covered by the licence. If I export from Word to a PDF without embedding the fonts it is probably covered by the licence as it was produced by Word. If I write a file in Jutoh in Arial Narrow, which exports to OpenOffice/LibreOffice and then make the PDF from there it would not be covered by the licence as the end product using Arial Narrow has not been made with Word and my right to use the font was tied to the licence I paid for as part of the cost of Word. It is of course a nightmare trying to work out which application provided the font.

The above is just US law (arising from a test case) so you would need to research each jurisdiction's interpretation of the law. So safer to buy fonts separately from your applications or download from the likes of Google Fonts (free fonts covered by Apache or SIL licences).


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> They are licensed for the production of the end product (e.g. a Word file if you use that method for CreateSpace) but not for embedding the fonts (as is required under Ingram Spark's PDF only submission rules).


That's the thing, though: I wouldn't dare send anything less than a .pdf with fully embedded fonts to CreateSpace. You just don't know what's going to change on you otherwise.

Plus, Word is actually terrible at print formatting. It has a serious longstanding bug with em dashes before an end quote, allowing a line break; OpenOffice has a similar but more manageable bug. Its page formatting options are inferior to OpenOffice as well, requiring hard section breaks for instance if you want to always start a chapter on a right page. So I write in Word but do all my print formatting in OpenOffice, where I have handy macros to take care of all the typographic issues.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

I'm confused. If I make a .pdf, the fonts aren't embedded?


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Al Stevens said:


> Let me say this again. I don't use Microsoft Word.


The reason people are mentioning Word is that Garmond is included in the product: regular, italic, and bold.


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## deedawning (Aug 31, 2013)

Times New Roman is pretty concise, but one I like that's even more concise is Mongolian Bati. I'm sure not everyone has it but I use it quite a bit if I want to lose 10-20 pages. Conversely I use Book Antigua to stretch a shorter book to 150 pages.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Al Stevens said:


> Using the Windows-provided Garamond is okay until you use italics. They do not provide an italic font, so Windows slants the regular font, which provides less-than ideal results.


Let me clarify. I can see where this wording led to a misunderstanding. The system-provided Garamond font has an italic font-family that is apparently computer-slanted using the font's regular glyphs as a baseline. This is not done in real time, but was done when the font was prepared. It is why italicized Garamond text looks smaller than its fellow regular text. Other versions of Garamond, italics fonts, such as Adobe's, were more carefully designed, probably by a font artist. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Here are some of the choices:


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Kat S said:


> The reason people are mentioning Word is that Garmond is included in the product: regular, italic, and bold.


Word Starter is included with Windows 7. (But not with 8.) The other poster said I was making claims about what Word does. I just wanted to clear that up. Thanks.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

I would not get caught up in font licensing.
I have said this before, but it pays to repeat...
There is no way anyone will know exactly what font you are using for a printed book unless they examine the source file (unless you use something unique which you won't).
Since they have no access to that file, there is no issue.
Font licensing is more of a scare tactic to make corporations buy fonts, in our usage that scare is virtually irrelevant.

One other thing, in the USA there is no copyright on letters of the alphabet, just copyright on the software (fonts are pieces of software with letterforms inside).
So if there is no software involved there is no copyright issue (eg. if you flatten your cover fonts into a single file so no actual vector letterforms remain).
Personally, I use fonts I have purchased for paying work (I work with fonts every day), as I find that an appropriate business thing to do, but if you are concerned about costs, don't feel obliged to spend hundreds of dollars on fonts just to get your book off the ground, there's plenty of time for that later.

And anyway, in the words of the philosopher: "The bitter comes out better on a stolen guitar."


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

artofstu said:


> I'm confused. If I make a .pdf, the fonts aren't embedded?


No which is why Ingram Spark explain how to check which fonts are embedded in the PDF (open pdf in Abobe Reader and its File>Properties>Fonts). Microsoft Publisher 2007 (my only version) will not allow you to embed a font that you lack a licence for. Or so it claims I have no idea how that works.

Here is a self-pub oriented guide to the issue:

http://www.self-pub.net/knowledge/faq-fonts.html


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

Flay Otters said:


> There is no way anyone will know exactly what font you are using for a printed book unless they examine the source file (unless you use something unique which you won't).
> Since they have no access to that file, there is no issue.


You must know something I don't. You give the file with the embedded fonts to Createspace or whatever. Anyone with Adobe Reader can tell what fonts are used. But you're right that only software can copyrighted, but that seems like semantics. The people who own the copyright on the software can determined through end user agreement how you use that software.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> No which is why Ingram Spark explain how to check which fonts are embedded in the PDF (open pdf in Abobe Reader and its File>Properties>Fonts). Microsoft Publisher 2007 (my only version) will not allow you to embed a font that you lack a licence for. Or so it claims I have no idea how that works.
> 
> Here is a self-pub oriented guide to the issue:
> 
> http://www.self-pub.net/knowledge/faq-fonts.html


Apparently the fonts in the pdfs I export from Scrivener are embedded.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

I'm looking closely at the licensing issue (or non-issue if you agree with Flay Otters) with respect to embedded fonts. Here's what I've learned so far.

Fonts are encoded with "permission bits" in the font files. These bits specify whether you may embed (or subset) the actual file in a document for distribution and for what usages.

The permission bits do not specify whether the user has a license to use the font, only what a licensed user may do with it.

It is not easy to find out how the permission bits are set for a particular font. The Windows font manager displays some of it, but only for fonts that are distributed as a font family with multiple styles (regular, italic bold, italic-bold). Acrobat's File/Document Properties dialog does not list permissions.

A font's permission bits may forbid embedding. The application that uses the font in a document has to react to that. Here are a few examples:

Word converts the glyphs to bitmaps
InDesign makes font substitutions, usually unacceptable ones.
Scribus makes outline renditions of the glyphs

All Adobe fonts may be used for "view and print," which means the recipient may not edit the text or any other document by using the embedded font.

Adobe's embedding font licenses can be found here:

http://www.adobe.com/products/type/font-licensing/font-embedding-permissions.html

That document explains the permission bits.

I'd almost bet that CreateSpace is licensed to use any view/print font we might send them.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

artofstu said:


> You must know something I don't. You give the file with the embedded fonts to Createspace or whatever. Anyone with Adobe Reader can tell what fonts are used. But you're right that only software can copyrighted, but that seems like semantics. The people who own the copyright on the software can determined through end user agreement how you use that software.


For brevity I did not include the disclaimer "who matters from a legal perspective."
Createspace and the like will print your PDF, they don't care what font is in there, as long as it is embedded it does not involve them having the font.
For example, if I send a Quark Xpress file to a printer I will send the fonts with the document. The printer is licensed to use those fonts for my document, by extension. They are supposed to delete those fonts after use (but nobody does).
By sending a PDF with embedded fonts you remove that step and Creatspace is permitted to use those fonts simply by their being in the PDF. Once they are embedded the fonts cannot be retrieved (at least in normal practice).
There is no way a font foundry/manufacturer will look at your printed book, then go to a judge and get a subpoena to retrieve your PDF file from Createspace on the off-chance it includes their special version of Garamond rather than the hundreds of other Garamonds.



Al Stevens said:


> I'm looking closely at the licensing issue (or non-issue if you agree with Flay Otters) with respect to embedded fonts. Here's what I've learned so far.
> 
> Fonts are encoded with "permission bits" in the font files. These bits specify whether you may embed (or subset) the actual file in a document for distribution and for what usages.
> 
> ...


Creatspace does not need to be "licensed" to use fonts inside a PDF. For all intents and purposes those fonts are no longer available except to print the PDF in which they are embedded.
Font licensing is so last century. You can't steal Adobe's fonts, and put your name on them, that's a no no. But if you are using them in a font-like manner they will never bother to check to make sure you bought the font, or own it as a part of an Adobe software download.
Bottom line, as long as the font will embed in your PDF and print out okay then you are good to go.
There is maybe one outside chance that you would use a font so bizarre that the guy who created it could recognize it, and then that guy would have to see it in your book (I sell 0 paperbacks, they are just there for show and to give away) then that guy would have to consult his "perfect" records to find if you had bought it, then that guy would have to accuse you, legally, of using his font illegally. I consider that an outside chance.

Please do not think I am saying "steal people's stuff cos it's cool."
I am saying that there are many other more important things to get caught up in than font licensing.
That's why I write ten words everywhere else and a hundred here. 
You can use pretty much any body font that you have on your computer and will embed.
All 12pt Garamond looks about the same so nobody is going to accuse you of stealing a font you almost certainly didn't steal anyway.
That's bad for business.

The waters are slightly muddier for display fonts, but there is a similar situation there, especially in the USA because there is no copyright protection for letters of the alphabet.

Non-Issue Flay


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

In terms of the license, generally if you're embedding a font in a PDF simply to send it to a printer, you're fine. In my experience, if you get into the fine print, most licenses for fonts you get as part of the operating system or major publishing and word processing programs let you do pretty much everything except actually distribute the font's ttf of otf file. 

I think I may have started this by commenting that a "free" font site was probably a "pirate" site and that's really what's important. People do work on these things, respect the license. Also check the fine print on files from places like DAFont. I found one, for example, that's free for personal or professional use, but not for anything un-Christian. I could start to split hairs about how Jesus never said anything about 10k erotica shorts in ebook, but it's obvious that's the kind of thing the font designer doesn't want, so I found another one.


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## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

Kat S said:


> In terms of the license, generally if you're embedding a font in a PDF simply to send it to a printer, you're fine. In my experience, if you get into the fine print, most licenses for fonts you get as part of the operating system or major publishing and word processing programs let you do pretty much everything except actually distribute the font's ttf of otf file.
> 
> I think I may have started this by commenting that a "free" font site was probably a "pirate" site and that's really what's important. People do work on these things, respect the license. Also check the fine print on files from places like DAFont. I found one, for example, that's free for personal or professional use, but not for anything un-Christian. I could start to split hairs about how Jesus never said anything about 10k erotica shorts in ebook, but it's obvious that's the kind of thing the font designer doesn't want, so I found another one.


Yes.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

David S. said:


> Your own screenshot proves exactly the opposite of what you are saying, but believe what you want.


Say what you want.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Al Stevens said:


> Say what you want.


He's right, bro: those are all true italics, not obliques. Each one of those Garamond italics is an italic variant of Garamond created by a typographer. Look at the lowercase h and the lowercase i in particular-the shapes are entirely different, not merely slanted. It's clearly not an oblique (which is the term for a faux italic generated by slanting a non-italic typeface).

That's not to say that the Windows Garamond italic isn't bullshit. It is. It definitely is. But it's not because it's an oblique and not a true italic.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Dolphin said:


> He's right, bro: those are all true italics, not obliques. Each one of those Garamond italics is an italic variant of Garamond created by a typographer. Look at the lowercase h and the lowercase i in particular--the shapes are entirely different, not merely slanted. It's clearly not an oblique (which is the term for a faux italic generated by slanting a non-italic typeface).


Not sure how my screenshot proves that since it is a resized bitmap portrayal of the fonts and does not show them side-by-side with the regular fonts. A careful look at the font vector designs themselves with a font editor should clear it up. I'll do that later if I find time. I cannot recall where I learned about how those fonts were built, so I cannot provide a link, but it was probably in the previous century.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

Al Stevens said:


> A careful look at the font vector designs themselves with a font editor should clear it up.


I just did that. You are right. The lower-case h is indeed a different glyph.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

David S. said:


> In what alternate reality is the second line created by slanting the first line?


Well, I no longer believe that, but looking at those two, applying some heuristics about the the two formats and a knowledge of the .otf and .ttf formats, a program to produce the italicized f from the regular f would be relatively easy. For those who understand computer programming, that is. It just probably wouldn't be worth the trouble for one font.


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## 10105 (Feb 16, 2010)

David S. said:


> I've only been a typesetter for 50 years and a programmer for 40, so you win.


You're over 90?  I do have a few years on you on the programming longevity. Full time from '58 to 2003. Part time since then. I've done typesetting but never full time and only for my own books, so you got me there, old-timer.


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