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The price of the full packages of professional, commercial fonts (Adobe Garamond, Minion, etc.) is far out of the range of what I can afford. So I am wondering if there is no alternative somewhere? If I just need to compile a few LuaLaTeX documents, can this not be done without buying the fonts themselves?

For instance, there are lots of (paid) online TeX compilation services by now. Do you know if any of them have commercial fonts in their system that can be used when compiling documents? A side question: Do you think this would even be legal? (Of course, the fonts would have to stay internally in their system, unaccessible for the users to download.)

Gaussler
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  • Font licensing is a critical topic and we don't give any legal advice here. So i guess at least that part is off-topic. – Johannes_B Jan 23 '15 at 21:17
  • There are soo many open source fonts out there, the whole TeX Gyre-project, Linux Libertine, many of them with good to excellent math support. Isn't there any font you like? – Johannes_B Jan 23 '15 at 21:18
  • An alternative for the case you don't like any free font and are unwilling to pay for one? Design your own, just the way you like it! :-) – Paul Gessler Jan 23 '15 at 21:23
  • It is not really about whether I like the font or not. I am planning to make a printed publication of some (public domain) novels, and I think people are going to be dissatisfied unless I pick a professional font that is good for novels. And even if I do not know much of book design myself, most real book desginers seem to be dissatisfied with the free fonts, including Linux Libertine. – Gaussler Jan 23 '15 at 21:27
  • @Johannes_B, well, it was just a side question, so please don't vote to close the question because of this. ;-) – Gaussler Jan 23 '15 at 21:29
  • This should be asked to the owners of the services. I don't think that they can legally make available to every subscriber fonts they have paid for. – egreg Jan 23 '15 at 21:33
  • You can use for example the Minion font which you get if you install Adobe Reader. – Juri Robl Jan 23 '15 at 21:38
  • @JuriRobl I think what could have lead to this question was How to get ϱ and ɔ working with MinionPro – Johannes_B Jan 23 '15 at 21:39
  • Unless your target readership is composed exclusively of professional typographers (and, to some extent, even if it is), I seriously doubt that people will be 'dissatisfied' if you choose a high quality free font. The fonts produced by GUST really are extremely good (including Latin Modern). Thankfully, it is not always a case of getting what you pay for: Comic Sans is not a free font. – cfr Jan 23 '15 at 22:36
  • @JuriRobl Not sure you can: the license for a font to use with a viewer won't necessarily cover use embed in documents produced, etc.. – Joseph Wright Jan 23 '15 at 22:36
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    I think you've got to bear in mind that 'have the font available' is not the same as 'have the legal right to use the font for typesetting a distributed document'. Font licenses for use on servers are expensive, and I don't see why any service would pay for this unless also charging you a lot. In any case, that's a legal question so off-topic for us. – Joseph Wright Jan 23 '15 at 22:38
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    @JosephWright It was actually discussed here already. And it seems to be legal. IANAL obviously. I personally like to use Libertine or kpfonts, though. – Juri Robl Jan 23 '15 at 22:44
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    @JuriRobl True: that one is really off-topic (although upvoted) so I've closed. I'll do the same here: it's a clear case. – Joseph Wright Jan 23 '15 at 22:53
  • If such fonts as TeX Gyre Pagella or EB Garamond seem inappropriate to you, note that you don’t need “the full packages of professional, commercial fonts” for novels. There’s almost never reason to use bold type in a novel. And since it’s a rare novel that has footnotes, you don’t need opticals either (chapter headings in a novel should not be as big as in the standard book class). Buying just the roman and italic in book weight may be within your budget. – Thérèse Jan 24 '15 at 02:35
  • @Thérèse, in most cases, I would agree. But if what I'm typesetting is the works of Søren Kierkegaard from the nineteenth century, I kinda can't decide if he uses footnotes or not. ;-) – Gaussler Jan 24 '15 at 08:32

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