Thank you! That was killing me!
:)

Slightly off-topic: There are decent ‘test drive’ implementations on a couple of foundry websites (at Typotheque, for one), but to my mind, H&FJ’s is particularly unhelpful. You can’t change the size of the letters and you get all the samples on a lined background, which makes it nearly impossible to judge the glyphs especially of light cuts. And when you want to include characters as exotic as ‘é’, these will be replaced by a question mark. Apparently, their clientele does not need a more sophisticated sample setting system.

Well, H&FJ apparently have enough customers who don’t move on to other foundries, the type tester notwithstanding. Still, I don’t understand the approach of neither offering PDF samples nor providing the potential customer with a proper instrument to try out the fonts. Why would you want your own typefaces to look bad and incomplete, as they do in a type tester with a patterned background and not even complete ASCII support? In any case: I agree with you, Hrant, that type testers like this will rather frighten off genuine customers than prevent unlicensed font use (or whatever they are supposed to prevent).

I don’t know what ‘enough customers’ would be for H&FJ. But: I am not surprised that they stick with existing solutions if they are satisfied with the way their business is going. I as a potential customer have always been put off by the fact that I couldn’t get a detailed sample of their typefaces on their website. They probably can send you a PDF, but I don’t like having to ask for that. However: Not offering PDFs for download, like deciding to not implement a better type tester, seems to be a deliberate choice to attract certain customers (who don’t need this or who want to get in touch with them anyway). Do you agree?

As I see it, the basic idea behind the backgrounds in type testers is to prevent cheapskates from using them as free headline generators—à la PLINC—for web projects, or—if the cheapskates are also disinterested in the quality of the finished project—for print projects as well.

My long experience with offering freebies tells me two things: a) determined thieves will have their way, regardless of any precautions you may take to thwart them; and b) it is highly unlikely that you will ever turn inveterate cheapskates into paying customers.