Typetin

Trial fonts

Trial fonts cut from your own files.

Designers want to set a typeface in a layout before they buy it, and a foundry wants that without the retail file leaving. In Typetin a trial is a licence like any other, priced at nothing, and it delivers a cut-down font made for the order.

Typetin is a licensing and sales back office for independent type foundries, with a shop on top or your own site in front. What Typetin does

Typetin hasn’t launched. What this page describes is built and in testing, and it isn’t open to foundries.

How a trial font is cut

Typetin cuts each trial font from the style’s uploaded file when the order is delivered. It keeps the 95 printable characters of basic Latin: letters, figures, ASCII punctuation and the space. Accented letters, other scripts and symbols are removed. Every OpenType feature is kept, so ligatures, alternates and small caps reached from those characters still work.

The family is renamed with “Trial” after it everywhere it is named, including variable instances, so it installs beside the retail font and a PDF names it as a trial. Embedding is set to preview and print. The licence description in the name table is replaced with a notice that the font is for evaluation only. Variable axes, named instances and hinting are kept.

Before the file is delivered, its character map is checked against the trial set, and a file holding anything more is refused. Retail files are never delivered under a trial licence. Each trial file is fingerprinted for the order like any download. The font fingerprinting guide covers what that record can and can’t prove.

The trial licence

Each licence you sell has a kind. Setting a licence’s kind to trial is what makes it deliver trial fonts, whatever you name it. A new foundry starts with a preset called “Trial (non-commercial, 30 days)”, with one free tier, delivering OTF or TTF (whichever the outlines are) and WOFF2.

A trial lasts the number of days you set on it, from 1 to 365, and 30 when you set none. The licence certificate gives its start and end dates and says it is for testing only. The starter licence agreement has a trial clause: testing in drafts, mock-ups and layouts that aren’t published, sold or used commercially, ending on the date on the certificate. The agreement is yours to change, and each order records the version accepted.

Checking out a trial

A cart that the server prices at exactly zero checks out with no payment provider, so a trial needs no card and works before your payment account is connected. The buyer still gives a licensee and accepts the agreement. Each foundry takes at most 5 free orders an hour from one email address and 20 from one network address, after a bot check. A free order adds nothing to royalty statements.

Trial fonts are on every plan.

When a trial ends

On its end date the trial licence is marked expired. Its download link stops working and a fresh one can’t be issued. The verification page says the trial has ended. No renewal reminder is sent for a trial.

The files the buyer already downloaded keep working. A font file has no clock in it, so after the end date what stands between a trial and a published job is the agreement and the fingerprint.

  • Fingerprinting: a signed record in every font you deliver, and the inspector that reads it back.
  • Licensing: licence tiers, terms, renewals and quotes.
  • Licence verification: a page on your shop where anyone can check a licence is genuine and still in force.
  • EULAs: the version each buyer accepted, on every order, and a page that proves a licence is genuine.

Pricing has what each plan includes, the roadmap has where every feature stands, and the guides cover selling type whichever tool you use.