Frequently asked questions

Browse through frequently asked questions we have received or anticipated below. If something remains unclear feel free to be in touch with support.

FAQ topics


Underscore takes pride in having a simple to understand licence for end users. If some points are unclear, the following points try to clarify.
Why are fonts licensed and not sold?
Digital fonts are much like software, in fact fonts are a highly specialised kind of software. You get the actual digital copy, but what you are actually purchasing is the right to use the software.
What's the difference between licensing fonts as a private customer and licensing fonts as company or organisation?
Either is possible. If you just want to use the fonts for yourself, in a small team or on a small website the "Basic" licence tier is for you. If you have the need to make our fonts available to more people, or require more extensive applications like use in software, epubs, movies, etc. the other licence tiers are more suitable. When you licence a font on behalf of a company or organisation (this can be your employer or not) you select who the licence is formed with. This is important, because the desktop user and monthly website page view limits apply to that company.
Who counts as a user?
Anybody who has the font files installed on their computer to view and edit documents. Users are actual persons, so if you install the fonts on several computers that are used exclusively by the same person, that is still just one user. However, if you install the fonts on a computer that is shared between many users, each person using the font counts. The "Enterprise" licence tier is made for scenarios where it is hard to exactly know how many users will need a font, for example if the font is used in a public terminal.
What are physical locations?
The "Company" and "Enterprise" licence tiers are restricted to one physical location. This means a location like an office, campus, roughly anything with an address and associated with the company or organisation. If you need to use the fonts in more than one location, you can contact support with details and discuss your needs.
How about sharing fonts with subcontractors?
If you hire someone else for some service and they need to use the fonts you licences from Underscore they will need to purchase their own licence. Our licences are always bound to one company or organisation.
Do you offer refunds?
As per §10 of our End User Licence Agreement you can request a refund within 30 days of your licence purchase. This presumes that you have not used the fonts in any way, e.g. not installed them, printed anything with them, used them in any software to render text, etc. For finding out if a typeface fits your projects, please try our free demo fonts before your purchase. To request a refund and reverse an unused purchase, please contact support from your account email address and provide the order and invoice number.


All the question you might have about our actual font file and how to use them.
Can I try fonts before I buy?
Sure! We have very easy to use font testers on each typeface family page where you can type your custom text right in the browser, and also see the full range of characters in the font. You can also download free demo fonts of our releases to preview our fonts in your mock designs. We currently offer those two demo variants of all our fonts, and both types of previews feature only a subset of the full fonts - i.e. the demos have glyphs missing, have restricted Opentype features, and are only available as Opentype fonts.
What formats do I get when I licence your fonts
All our packages come with at least and Opentype OTF, Opentype TTF as well as WOFF and WOFF2 files.
Do you provide EOT or SVG webfont files?
No. These file format are obsolete and you should not be using them. See the browser support tables for woff to see for yourself.
Are all fonts hinted?
Yes, and no. There is two types of hinting: PostScript and TrueType hinting. All out fonts are available as PostScript hinted files (the OTF files you get) and automatically TrueType hinted (the TTF and webfont files you get). It is Underscore's take that hinting in fonts is becoming more and more obsolete production step that only rarely warrants the time and effort. Modern operating systems either disregard hinting information altogether (Mac OS, iOS) or achieve considerably high quality display with automatically hinted fonts (Windows). We do also provide manually hinted TrueType fonts on commission.

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For your questions regarding data privacy and data collection, please also see our extensive privacy policy for more in detail information.
Do I need to create an account to buy fonts from Underscore?
Yes, and no. On the one hand we are legally obliged to collect a minimum of customer data like name and address. On the other hand, we also require your email address to provide you access to download the fonts you licensed from us. By filling in your billing information we automatically create an account for you as part of your order. You can chose to use that account for future purchases, link social media accounts for easier login, or you just download your fonts after purchase.
Do you share my information with anybody?
As per our privacy policy we do not share any of your information with anybody.
Why is the website asking to store cookies?
Cookies are little bits of information the website stores in your browser to make things like keeping track of your shopping cart or location on the website possible. Like real-life cookies, they are fairly harmless :)
We also use the Google Analytics suite to keep track of general website statistics. In order to better protect your privacy we have disabled advertising features, which would share additional information about your visit with other Google services.
Is my credit card payment data safe with you?
We do not store any of your credit card data on our servers at all. When you enter your credit card information or Paypal account information this happens on our payment providers' server. They are using industry standard security measures and are PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant, meaning they have to follow very stringent regulations to make sure your information is safe.