Pirated MICR Fonts

It has come to our attention that many of the lower cost MICR font sets found on the web have been stolen, or pirated. It is much easier to simply copy someone else's MICR 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 MICR 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 MICR fonts that have been transformed in this way.

All of our MICR fonts sets are copyrighted and registered with the U.S. Copyright office. If you or your organization obtain a pirated copy of our MICR 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 MICR 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 MICR fonts

If you find a set of MICR fonts with special characters at the same location as they are found in our fonts, it most probably is 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:
- MICR Fonts - high density check character (twin vertical lines only visible at 600 dpi or better) is at ASCII location 123, "{", the horizontal alignment character is at ASCII location 124, "|", and the density check character (twin vertical lines any visible at 300 dpi or better) is at ASCII location 125, "}".
- Secure Number Fonts™ - if you run across Secure Number fonts for printing checks that look like our fonts, they are probably pirated.
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 MICR font with their copyright notice in it, but it works with our calibration tool, it may be pirated.
If you are using a "freeware" MICR font, it is most probably pirated. It takes hundreds of man hours to develop a MICR font that works correctly. There are no free versions that work properly.

Email Us
Elfring Fonts, Inc
2020 Dean St, Unit N, St Charles IL 60174, USA
Phone: 630-377-3520 Fax: 630-377-6402
Bar Code Fonts CD Duplication Elfring Fonts