This page was last updated
March 08, 2011
Can I use a Linguist's
Software font on my work computer and my home computer (or my desktop
computer and a laptop)? Individuals who need to have access to a
Linguist's Software (LS) product on more than one computer at a time need to
purchase separate units, a Personal Use License (PUL), or a
site license. Individuals may purchase a PUL for
one LS product for their personal use only on one additional computer for
$25, and additional computers at $15 each. Separate LS product Personal Use
Licenses ordered at the same time are $15 each. If you know your
registration number you can easily purchase a PUL on our secure
Order Form.
Otherwise, please contact the sales office.
Can I transfer a product I have
purchased to another person? With the exception of Site Licenses, which may
not be transferred, you may transfer all
your license rights to a Linguist's Software product to another party by
deleting it from your computer(s) and transferring all the Software and
fonts, backup copies, the related documentation, and a copy of the Software License
to another party, provided the other party reads and agrees to accept the
terms and conditions of the Software License. To register the new owner you must
then notify Linguist's Software of the new owner's name, address, telephone number, and
email address.
Are there Customs fees for the products I purchase
from you? Your
government may add Customs duties, VAT taxes, or import fees to the total
cost. There may also be Customs brokerage fees charged by the courier
(express) company. For example, UK recipients may
pay a VAT tax plus a £10 brokerage fee. These costs, if any, are added by
your government and/or shipping agencies, not us. We do not know ahead of time
what they may be and have no control over them. They are not reflected in the
shipping costs listed above.
I am using your fonts in a book I am writing. Are
there any licensing requirements for this use? In written work we only
require you to acknowledge the use of our fonts according to paragraph 3
of our Software License, which says, "3. Acknowledgment in
Publications. You agree to include the following acknowledgment in any
work which in its published form uses LS fonts: "The
[LS font name(s)] font(s) used to print this work is(are) available from
Linguist's Software, Inc., PO Box 580, Edmonds, WA 98020-0580 USA tel
(425) 775-1130, www.linguistsoftware.com."" There are
different requirements for those wishing to embed our fonts in PDF, PFR
or WEFT (.eot) files or publish our fonts on web sites.
Will your fonts work in all of my programs? Our
fonts are standard Windows and Macintosh fonts and should work in any
application which follows standard font-handling conventions. They work in
almost all modern programs that have a font menu that allows you to choose
from the fonts in the system. An example of a program that does not is tax
preparation software which uses a system font. A very few programs, most
notably WordPerfect
for Windows, have bugs or limitations in them which restrict the use
of all features in some of our fonts. Windows users only: There are
further restrictions on the use of
Type 1 fonts.
Are your fonts Unicode-compatible? Linguist's
Software produces both Unicode-compliant fonts for Windows and Macintosh, and fonts that
are not Unicode-compliant, but which have custom encodings. The character
sets of the Unicode-compliant fonts are a subset of the characters
described in The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0, © 1991-2000 Unicode, Inc.
(ISBN: 0-201-61633-5), and are updated to support the Unicode standard,
version 3.1.1. To support the unique needs of many languages they may also
contain characters and symbols in the Private Use Area which are not yet
included in the Unicode Standard, as well as keyboard software for typing
that language.
The currently shipping versions of our custom-encoded Windows products
do contain some Unicode data, but they are not exclusively Unicode (that
is, they have custom-encodings) for several reasons:
1. Unicode fonts can only be used by Unicode-aware applications.
2. Our Unicode fonts are incompatible with all earlier versions of our
corresponding fonts for that language so that earlier texts or much of
earlier texts made with our fonts cannot be viewed with the Unicode fonts
by highlighting text and changing fonts. (However, for some non-Unicode
fonts we have created converters which will convert the text to our new
Unicode-encoded fonts.)
3. Unicode does not support all of the accents and
special characters of some languages, transliteration systems, or
language texts. For example, it does not support all of the accents of
the Hebrew Scriptures (BHS, Leningrad Codex) and hardly any of the text
critical sigla and other special symbols for either New or Old Testament
Biblical texts. This means all such characters must be placed in the
Private Use Area. Although our LaserHebrew is being used by the UBS in
preparing the BHQ (Biblia Hebraica Quinta), it could not do so with a
font limited to the Unicode standard.
4. Unicode deliberately by principle does not include conjunct forms of
letters. This requires additional software to be made to call up conjunct
forms, and custom versions of this software will probably have to be made
for different applications after they come out with Unicode support. This
increases the burden on font foundries to an enormous degree, forcing them
to pick arbitrary positions for characters that were supported by former
standardized code pages, to create input software as well as fonts, and
possibly even to supply application-specific support. Ironically, Unicode
attempts to replace standard code pages which did support these conjunct
forms, but it does so without providing an alternate standard coding for
these conjunct forms. As a result Unicode has undermined standard encoding
of conjunct forms! In our opinion, this fundamental aspect of linguistic
display should have been supported by Unicode from the start. It would
have been far more logical to have support for all the graphic forms
required by the world's languages rather than just some of them. Unicode's
choice to leave it up to font makers to assign an inevitably non-standard
position for conjunct forms subverts the goal of standardization.
5. Many of the languages for which we provide fonts and input tools
have no Unicode standard we could follow (e.g. Hieroglyphics, Akkadian,
many American Indian languages). Thus, the special characters and symbols
in those languages would be in the Private Use Area.
Linguist's Software intends to produce
Unicode-encoded versions of as many of our products as possible. Unicode
versions of some of our products have already been
released. If you wish to be
informed when a particular product in which you are interested is released
in Unicode-compliant form, please contact us.
I cannot access your Order Form. There
are three main reasons you may be having trouble accessing our Order
Form:
1. A busy Internet connection. This is the most common reason. When web
users click on a web site link (such as our Order Form) the HTTP request
for a page can take many different physical routes across the Internet
before the page is returned to your browser. It is very common for some
routes to be slow. The only solution is to wait a short time and try
again.
2. Network security policies. It is common for Network Systems
Administrators to block access to web pages that are SSL-encrypted. (SSL
means Secure Socket Layer.) We encrypt our Order Form to protect your
personal information as it is transmitted to us. Since SSL-encryption
slows down transmission of a page we do not use it elsewhere on our web
site. If you are on a network ask your Systems Administrator if he can set
your Permissions to allow access to SSL-encrypted web pages.
3. Old browsers. If you are not using Internet Explorer 4.x or
Navigator/Communicator 4.x, or later, you may get a message that says your
Certificate Authority is Expired (or something similar, depending on your
browser) when you try to access our secure Order Form. We assure you our
Server Certificate is valid and our order form is secure, but this message
is alerting you to the fact that the Root Certificate in your browser
has expired. You should install a newer version of Internet Explorer or Netscape
Navigator/Communicator.
If, after considering these possible solutions, you still cannot access
our Order Form, please contact us. You also are
welcome to order by email, fax or telephone.
When I try to access your diskette in my floppy
drive to install the software, my system gives me a message that the
diskette is not formatted and it asks me if I want to do so.
Occasionally floppy drives get out of alignment and refuse to recognize
diskettes that were formatted by another floppy drive. Please try our
diskette in another computer's floppy drive, if possible, just to see if
it can be properly read. If it can, then your floppy drive may be out of
alignment and you should have it aligned, repaired or replaced. If the
diskette cannot be read by another drive, then most likely the diskette is
bad and needs to be replaced. Sometimes simply tapping the diskette on a
desk or turning the center spindle of the diskette in its plastic case
will "adjust" it enough to allow a drive to read it. If you do
need to replace it, see our Replacement
Policy.
Where do I get technical support for third-party
software I purchase from Linguist's Software? Technical support for
third-party software which we resell is provided by the manufacturer, not
by Linguist's Software. A list of third-party software we sell is here.
Do you have a font that looks like Church
Slavonic, but will print English in that style? In other words, I need an
English font whose characters look stylistically like Old Church Slavonic
letters. Similarly can I create English in letter shapes like Gaelic,
Littera, Fraktur, and Saxon? Yes, we have made available two Old
Church Slavonic-style English fonts. Both Cyrillic II
Slavonic and Cyrillic II Optina
include the English alphabet stylized to fit their corresponding
Cyrillic-style alphabet. English uses the lower ASCII portion of the
CyrillicIISlavonic and CyrillicIIOptina fonts. Each letter of the English
alphabet is stylistically like the Old Church Slavonic or Optina (the
style used in Christian Icons) letters. In both cases you can toggle
between typing English in that style and typing Cyrillic in that style.
Similarly, you can use LaserGaelic, LaserLittera,
LaserFraktur, and LaserSaxon
to produce English letters using their respective styles.
Do any of your fonts include the eth, thorn and
yogh? All three characters are present in lower- and upper-case forms
in LaserSaxon and LaserTransliterator.
The eth and thorn are present in lower- and upper-case forms in TransRoman,
TransRoman Dictionary, and TransSlavic.
The eth and yogh are present in lower-case form in LaserIPA.
What do the terms "overstrike" and
"deadkey" mean in your product descriptions? An overstriking
character is a character (accent, breathing mark, tone mark, or other
diacritic mark) which is automatically placed over or under the
previously-typed letter. For example, in our LaserGreek fonts when you
type the 'a' key you get the Greek alpha. If you then type the 'v' key you
get an acute accent over the alpha. If instead you type the semicolon you
get the grave over the previously-typed alpha. Overstrikes can be placed
over/under any other character in any combination. A deadkey is a key
which displays nothing on the screen when typed but sets up the keyboard
to display an accented character after the next key is typed. For example,
in our EuroSlavic for Windows product, if you type the semicolon key
nothing happens until you type the next key. If the next key you type is
the 'a' key you will get the 'a' with an acute accent over it. If you type
semicolon followed by 'e' you will get 'e-acute'. If you type semicolon
followed by 'o' you will get 'o-acute'. If you type semicolon followed by
uppercase 'A' you will get 'A-acute'.
I do not have a credit card? How else may I pay?
-
VISA, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover (just tell us your card number,
expiration date, and the billing address of the card if it is different
than the ship-to address).
-
US$ Postal Money Order. We have never been charged a fee to cash a
Postal Money Order, but if we are charged a fee to cash your Postal Money
Order, you will be responsible to reimburse it.
-
US$ International Money Order or a Check in US$ drawn on a USA Bank
with the USA Bank address and federal reserve routing number preprinted on
the money order or check. If there is no USA bank address and federal
reserve routing number preprinted on the check, add $76.50 to the amount
of your check to cover the collection fee we must pay.
-
International wire transfer by Telex. Contact us for
details. Specify your name and our invoice number in the wire. Add $20 to
what you pay to Linguist's Software in order to cover our incoming wire fee.
Prepay your bank's outgoing wire fee. Also prepay any intermediate bank fees
by specifying "OUR" (not "BEN") in field 71A of the SWIFT MT100 Payment
Instruction Form. Notify Linguist's Software of the wire by , fax (+1-425-771-5911), phone
(+1-425-775-1130) or airmail.
You may fax your order anytime (425-771-5911).
For telephone calls, our office hours are 9-5 weekdays, Pacific
time. Our office hours are, calling from: New York 12pm-8pm;
London 5pm-1am; Sydney 3am-11am.
Will your fonts work on my PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)? Our fonts
are standard Windows and Macintosh TrueType and Type 1 fonts. They will only
work for you if your PDA supports one of those font formats. Please refer to
your owner's manual or contact the manufacturer of your PDA for information.
Note, however, that if you decide the fonts will work, the input of characters
from the extended character set in each font may be difficult. Ease of input
depends on your PDA's operating system and included utilities, since as far as
we know our Windows and Macintosh keyboard resources will not work outside of
the Windows and Macintosh Operating Systems.
Are the Windows and Macintosh versions of your fonts compatible? Most
Linguist's Software products available for both Windows and Macintosh are
compatible, but will require some conversion before files can be transferred
between platforms. Certain of our products can be converted using our CrossPlatform
Converter, and all other products have instructions in the User's Manual for
transferring files between platforms using Rich Text Format (RTF) or text only
format. Some products require that global Find and Replace operations be
performed on the files during the conversion process. Note: You must have the
same or compatible fonts installed on both computers.
Can I use my word processor's Sort feature with your fonts? In
almost all cases the resulting order will not be completely alphabetic for
the language. The least correspondence will come in non-alphabetic
languages. Our language fonts have different character sets from the
standard Windows and Macintosh Latin fonts. Windows and Macintosh English
applications (such as Word and Excel) have Sort orders based on the
English language. They therefore will not correctly sort other languages
(such as Bengali, Coptic, Punjabi, etc.), which have much different
character sets and sort orders. A few of our products will sort correctly
(e.g. EuroRoman, EuroScript, LaserFraktur
and LaserKwakwala).
What is the difference between your TrueType and Type 1 fonts? How do I
decide which to install? Both font formats are scalable, vector fonts and
will produce equally fine output in most circumstances. We recommend use of the
TrueType format, which is supported natively by both Windows and Macintosh
operating systems. Some Windows applications have trouble displaying and
printing some characters in the Type 1 (PostScript) format font files. Normally, users will install the Type 1 fonts only if they
publish their work using a high-resolution image setter (like a Linotronic
printer) which requires PostScript Type 1 fonts. Note: Do not install both formats
at the same time as this could cause line spacing problems in your
documents.
Can I get a free evaluation copy or demo of one of your fonts? We do
not have evaluation or demo copies of our fonts, but you may see samples of each
product on its product page. You may purchase our products with confidence,
since our products come with a 30-day money back guarantee on the product cost.
This does not cover the shipping method you choose or duties charged by other
countries. You would need to ask customs how to get a refund for them.
Can I use your fonts with OCR software? Most OCR (Optical Character
Recognition) software can be trained to identify any character and can therefore
be used with our non-Latin fonts. Check with the manufacturer of the OCR
software you are considering using.
Can I use your fonts to publish a web page? If you wish to publish
files on your web site that include Linguist's Software fonts you will need to
provide a way for your viewers to read the files with the proprietary fonts,
since all users may not have the fonts on their own systems. There are three
ways you can do this:
1. Type your text using our font(s). Your web authoring software will insert
<fontface> tags into the HTML. Your viewers will then be required to have
the same font(s) installed on their computer to successfully read your web site.
There are three ways you can provide our font(s) to your viewers:
a. Purchase the fonts from us at the dealer price for
resale to your viewers. You become a dealer.
b. Advertise on your web site the availability of the font
from us at a 20% discount. We would then honor that price when they mention your
web site. Place a link on your web site to the actual product page on our web
site so your viewers are actually brought right to the page from which they can
order the font(s). (You can format the link so it opens in a new browser window
so your viewers do not leave your site.) Contact us about this so we can be
prepared for your viewers to come to us for the products).
c. License the font from us for download from your site.
This normally would be very expensive since it would affect sales of our
products. To apply for this license complete the license
application and fax or mail it to us. You are not allowed to distribute our
font(s) until the license is signed by both parties and the license fee has been
received by Linguist's Software.
2. License from us the right to embed our font(s) in Adobe Acrobat PDF,
TrueDoc PFR, or Microsoft WEFT (.eot) files. Your viewers would then see the text exactly as you type and
format it. Download the license application, complete
it and fax or mail it to us. You are not allowed to embed our font(s) in any
files until the license is signed by both parties and the license fee has been
received by Linguist's Software. For PDF, PFR and WEFT (.eot) licenses this is typically a
modest annual fee based on the number of fonts and font styles (plain, bold,
italic, and bold-italic) that are being licensed. Basic conditions for a
license to embed Linguist's Software fonts in PDF, PFR or WEFT (.eot) files include:
a. A $50 per year per font style custom font embedding license fee is paid to
Linguist's Software for this license. In the case of Windows fonts this payment will also cover
our preparation of a version of the font(s) which permits embedding for preview
and printing.
b. The font(s) may be embedded in PDF, PFR or WEFT (.eot) files only if the fonts are subsetted
so that only the actual characters used in the file are embedded. For security
reasons these Linguist's Software fonts may not be embedded using any version of Acrobat prior to
version 3.0, in any version of PDFWriter (since it has inadequate subsetting
capability) or in any other PDF, PFR or WEFT (.eot) generator which you know makes files from
which font data can be extracted.
c. This font may be embedded in PDF, PFR or WEFT (.eot) files only if the acknowledgement is
included in a prominent place in each document containing it: "The
font(s) used to publish this work is available from Linguist's Software, Inc.,
PO Box 580, Edmonds, WA 98020-0580 USA, tel (425) 775-1130,
www.linguistsoftware.com." Note that the web address must function as a
link to our web site if the PDF files are being distributed on the web.
d. Linguist's Software reserves the right not to renew this license if it
determines that the risk of piracy to our font data has become too great to
warrant continuance of this license.
3. Put the text that uses our fonts on your web site as graphics (.gif or
.jpeg files) so all may read it without a font. This would require no license
from us and cost you nothing beyond the purchase of the product by you, from
which you would make the graphic files using a graphics program such a Microsoft
Image Composer or PhotoShop. It would require only an acknowledgement of our
font on your web site and a link to our site so viewers could come to us if they
want to buy the font. See paragraph 3 of the Software
License for the form of the acknowledgement.
Your product has more than one keyboard. Which one do I use? Several
of our products have keyboards designed for use with one or more specific fonts
in the product. You must therefore install and use those keyboards with the
corresponding fonts. This will always be explained in the User's Manual and the
keyboard layout chart will have the font name as part of its title. All other
products that have multiple keyboards do so to provide the user a choice of
keyboard layout (arrangement of the keys), but all languages supported by the
product can be typed from each of the keyboards. For example, Cyrillic II ships
with six optional keyboard layouts: Russian (computer), Russian (typewriter),
Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian and AATSEEL transliterated (phonetic). The first
five are national standard keyboards, arranged the same as the keyboards in
those countries. The last keyboard is a phonetic keyboard based on the English
(US) keyboard. Users would choose the keyboard with which they are most
familiar, but would be able to type all languages supported by the Cyrillic II
fonts with any of the keyboards. Users may also install multiple keyboards and
switch between them at any time.
Do your products translate my files from English into the language of the
font? No, our font products are not translation software. They are language
fonts which install into the operating system and are made available for use in
all your favorite applications. They allow you to type the language(s) each font
supports, but you must know the language you are typing unless you are merely
copying text. Each product provides written instruction for installation and
use, including keyboard layout charts showing the location on the keyboard of
each character in the font.
Can I use the Symbol font that ships with Windows and Macintosh operating
systems to read files typed in your SymbolGreek II font? No, it will not
work. The Symbol font that comes with computer operating systems does indeed
contain Greek characters, but it is not a complete Greek font. It lacks all
breathing marks, accents, iota subscripts, diereses and combinations of them as
well as other letter forms and text-critical symbols used in Greek. Our
SymbolGreek font was created to provide a complete Classical and Biblical Greek
font based on the 'style' of the Symbol font. Their character sets are
significantly different. Someone receiving a message typed in one of our
LaserGreek fonts will have to have one of our LaserGreek fonts to read it.
Can I place the overstriking accents or other diacritics in one or your
fonts over my text which I have already typed with a standard Windows/Macintosh
font? Yes. At any point in your document you may insert the cursor after a
letter, change to our font and input an overstriking diacritic over/under the
preceding character. Note, however, that the typestyle, height, width and weight
of your font may not match our font and so the diacritics may not match in style
or align as perfectly as they do when typed over our font. You may increase the
height and weight of accents slightly by increasing their size. Alternately, you
may decrease the height and weight of accents slightly by decreasing their size.
Depending on which of our fonts you are using you may be able to change your
entire file to our font and then insert the diacritics.
Can I get a discount if I purchase multiple copies of a product?
Yes.
Linguist's Software provides a generous discount to educational institutions
when purchasing multiple copies under an Educational Site License. Businesses
and other individuals may also get a discount for multiple copies. See our Site
License page for details. Individuals who need to have access to a
Linguist's Software product on more than one computer at a time need to purchase
separate units, a Personal Use License (PUL), or a site license. Individuals may
purchase a PUL for one LS product for their personal use only on one additional
computer for $25, and additional computers at $15 each. Separate LS product
Personal Use Licenses ordered at the same time are $15 each.
Some of your products have the word "Laser" in their
title. Do I need a laser printer to use them? No, our
fonts will work with any printer your operating system supports (laser,
ink jet, or dot matrix) and will print to the highest resolution supported
by your printer.
Can I use Linguist's Software fonts to read web pages in
specific languages?
Yes, you can. However, the font you use must have the same character
arrangement as the web page you wish to read. Four of our fonts are arranged to
conform to international standards for character arrangement and will allow you
to read Cyrillic, Central
and East European, modern Greek
and Turkish web pages.
If you wish to use any other of our fonts to read a web page, the page itself
must have been created using our font or a compatible font. (For example, a web
page formatted in our Graeca II Greek font will be readable in our SymbolGreek
II font, since they have the same arrangement.) To set your web browser to use
our font you must change default settings in your browser. The steps to do this
will differ in different browsers. In later versions of Internet Explorer for
Windows go to Tools, Internet Options, and select Fonts. In IE for the Macintosh
go to Edit, Preferences, and under Web Browser select Language/Fonts. In either
version of IE you now select a language and associate a font with that language.
When IE then opens a page on the web that is formatted in that language IE will
use the font you have selected to read that page. In later versions of Netscape
Navigator (Mac or Windows) go to Edit, Preferences, and under Appearance select
Fonts. Here you again choose a language and associate the font with it that you
wish your browser to use when it opens a page formatted in that language.
Can I get replacement diskettes or manuals for
products I own?
Yes, you can. See our Replacement Policy for
information on ordering replacement diskettes and/or manuals for Linguist's
Software products for which you are a registered owner.
How do I upgrade my product?
Registered users may upgrade by contacting the
sales office with their registration number, contact, shipping and credit card
information. Your registration number is the same as the invoice number on the
invoice shipped with the product. If you purchased your Linguist's Software
product from a reseller and not directly from us, you must register your product
by mailing us the blue registration card included with the product. To check the latest version of any product, see
Product
Version Numbers. To check upgrade costs, see Upgrades.
Can I embed Linguist's Software fonts in Adobe Acrobat PDF files, in
Bitstream TrueDoc PFR files, or in Microsoft WEFT (.eot) files? Our Software License
does not allow embedding of Linguist's Software fonts in PDF, PRF or WEFT files (or in
any other embedded form) without an additional annual license which has a modest
license fee. The reason for this is that distributing files with embedded fonts actually
is distributing copies of our copyrighted encoded font program's data. If
you wish to embed our fonts in PDF, PFR, WEFT (.eot) or other embedded forms, please complete
the license application found on our web site and fax
or mail it to us. We can then contact you with a proposal. If it is
acceptable to you, we will prepare a Font Embedding License Agreement for you.
When it is signed and the license fee is paid, you may begin distribution
according to the terms of the License.
Basic conditions for a license to embed
Linguist's Software fonts in PDF, PFR or WEFT (.eot) files include:
1. A $50 per year per font style custom font embedding license fee is paid to
Linguist's Software for this license. In the case of Windows fonts this payment will also cover
our preparation of a version of the font(s) which permits embedding for preview
and printing.
2. The font(s) may be embedded in PDF, PFR or WEFT (.eot) files only if the fonts are subsetted
so that only the actual characters used in the file are embedded. For security
reasons these Linguist's Software fonts may not be embedded using any version of Acrobat prior to
version 3.0, in any version of PDFWriter (since it has inadequate subsetting
capability) or in any other PDF, PFR or WEFT (.eot) generator which you know makes files from
which font data can be extracted.
3. This font may be embedded in PDF, PFR or WEFT (.eot) files only if the acknowledgement is
included in a prominent place in each document containing it: "The
font(s) used to publish this work is available from Linguist's Software, Inc.,
PO Box 580, Edmonds, WA 98020-0580 USA, tel (425) 775-1130,
www.linguistsoftware.com." Note that the web address must function as a
link to our web site if the PDF files are being distributed on the web.
4. Linguist's Software reserves the right not to renew this license if it
determines that the risk of piracy to our font data has become too great to
warrant continuance of this license.
How do I know if I have the latest version of a product?
To check the latest version of any product, see Product
Version Numbers. To check upgrade costs, see Upgrades.
Why do characters on screen appear uneven or ragged in Windows, even
though they print beautifully?
This problem (or phenomenon) is caused by two factors: the ability of the
TrueType rasterizer built into Windows to display the outline characters as they
are drawn to the screen, and the level of hinting in the font. For further
information, see Hinting.
If you have suggestions for topics to be covered by this FAQ,
please contact us.
Frequently Asked Questions
about our Windows products
Frequently Asked Questions
about our Macintosh products
Complete List of all Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ - General
