Pirated Bar Code Fonts

It has come to our attention that a number of the lower cost bar code font sets found on the web have been stolen, or pirated. It is much easier to simply copy someone else's bar code font rather than create your own. This can be a problem for your firm if you buy a set of these pirated fonts. While it is relatively simple to import a bar code font into a font editor and then change the copyright notice, or even scale or resize the font, it is also very easy for us to identify bar code fonts that have been transformed in this way.

All of our bar code fonts sets are copyrighted and registered with the U.S. Copyright office. If you or your organization obtain a pirated copy of our bar code fonts, you may be held liable for using and/or distributing these illegal copies. At a minimum, you can be forced to destroy all copies of these fonts, destroy everything printed using these fonts, and pay a fine. If you suspect that a bar code product may be an illegal copy of ours, please email us so we can investigate. You can remain anonymous and you can also be rewarded if damages are collected.

How to identify stolen bar code fonts

• If you find a set of bar code fonts with special characters at the same location as they are found in our fonts, it may be a pirated font. You can quickly check for this by comparing the character locations of a few symbols in our fonts. If you find fonts with the same character locations as described below, please report it to us so we can investigate. Our fonts use the following unique character placements:
  
  
  • Interleaved 2 of 5 Fonts - start character is at ASCII location 123, "{", the stop character is at ASCII location 125, "}", and the character for "90" is at ASCII 161, "¡".
  • Code 3/9 Fonts - the space symbol is at ASCII location 126, "~".
  • Code 93 Fonts - start character is at ASCII location 40, "(", the stop character is at ASCII location 41, ")", and the space symbol is at ASCII location 126, "~".
  • Code 128 Fonts -start A is at ASCII location 123, "{", start B is at ASCII location 124, "|", start C is at ASCII location 125, "}", the stop character is at ASCII location 126, "~", and character positions in high ASCII begin at ASCII 161, "¡".
  • Codabar Fonts - the human readable versions show start and stop codes as lower case letters.
  • EAN and Bookland Fonts - the number 2 digit is in character locations #, 2, C and S. Short supplemental bar codes start at locations a and q. (The number 2 supplemental digit is in c and s.)
  • Postnet Fonts - the font only sizes correctly when 18 points is used. The start character is at ASCII location 40, "(", the stop character is at ASCII location 41, ")"
  • UPC A Fonts - the required guard bar character is ASCII location 124, "|", the number 2 digit is in character locations #, 2, C and S. The short supplemental codes always begin with a "/" and the remaining characters are separated by "."s.
  • UPC E Fonts - the number 2 digit is in character locations 2, C and S, start character is at ASCII location 91, "[", the stop character is at ASCII location 93, "]". The short supplemental codes always begin with a "/" and the remaining characters are separated by "."s.
    
    
• If the company you buy from does not list a phone number and an address on their web site, beware. Also be suspicious of firms that don't offer technical support. Make sure the company has its own merchant account or uses a reputable company to collect payment for the product. You should suspect something is wrong if a company only uses PayPal, Western Union or a similar money transfer service to accept payment.
• If the company you order from does not have their own domain name. Software pirates often host their web sites anonymously on free web hosting sites such as Geocities.com, or as sub-domains on small ISPs, or in internet malls.
• If a company sells you a bar code font with their copyright notice in it, but it works with our font tools, it may be pirated.
• If a company sells you a bar code font with VBA source code to use in Excel or Access that is very similar to ours or if they do not let you see the source code because of password protection, it may be pirated. See our VBA source code here to compare the functions in the VBA code., or simply try our stand alone utility program to see if it works with their fonts.
• If a company includes source code that is very similar to our source code, that source code may be a copyright violation. In addition, the font that works with this source code may be pirated.
• If you are using a "freeware" bar code font, make sure it is from a reputable company that really does exist. If a font is distributed as freeware without specific license information that indicates who created it and under what conditions you may use it, that font may be pirated.

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Elfring Fonts, Inc
2020 Dean St, Unit N, St Charles IL 60174, USA
Phone: 630-377-3520 Fax: 630-377-6402
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