A SharePoint Brand Center Fonts: A Licensing Guide

Font licensing for SharePoint Brand Center on Microsoft 365 can be confusing. This article breaks down what the official documentation really means, explains why proper licensing matters, and shows how Microsoft handles asset security—helping your organization avoid mistakes and stay compliant. A simple and clear guide to SharePoint Brand Center font guide.

Fonts require a license

Any font used in Microsoft 365 applications requires a font license that covers the conditions of font usage for the intended product. This could include a webfont license, application license, desktop license, server license, or several other license types. – Source: Microsoft.

This only states that you need to have a font license for your font. Specifically for SharePoint, you need to purchase a font license for the web.

Let’s assume you have a license for all your client devices to install the font on. This license does not typically permit the use of the font for web or SharePoint applications.

A font license that exists for your public-facing website doesn’t help either. Typically it is tied to a specific domain and using it on an intranet often requires a separate license. If you use the font on the website example.com, you would need to purchase a license for example.sharepoint.com. The CDN url also does not matter here, since example.sharepoint.com is URL that load the font. In most cases it is required to have a self-hosted web license specifically for SharePoint.

Your organisation doesn’t need to have a license for applications, since Microsoft does not render the fonts, for example, in Teams, when it is not inside a web view.

WARNING: By using this feature

By using this feature and publishing font files, a font catalog is created. The newly created font catalog files are publicly stored, along with the fonts, in the cloud, and won’t respect the site classification guidelines if the Organization Asset Library is hosted in a Restricted SharePoint Site. The font catalog files contain font names and other font related metadata. The files are accessible to anyone, even people outside of your organization, who can get the URLs that link to them. – Source: Microsoft

This warning is problematic for several reasons, as some statements here are inaccurate. The Brand Center requires a public CDN, whereas a private CDN would have sufficed.

“The newly created font catalog” refers to the collection of fonts stored in your tenant’s brand center. It would be highly illegal for Microsoft to make fonts uploaded to your tenant available to other tenants. Additionally, Microsoft would need the appropriate license to distribute these fonts outside your organization.

“Publicly stored” means that the data is hosted on a Public CDN. This can sound concerning because, in theory, anyone could access your organization’s assets from anywhere.

Although the CDN is technically public, Microsoft enforces strict HTTP-level security policies that limit access exclusively to your SharePoint tenant. As a result, fonts cannot be loaded or used outside this context—not even by other tenants.

Individuals outside your organization can only access the font if they have access to your tenant.

Try to access public CDN

Don’t trust me? The “Segoe UI Variable” I uploaded to the brand center is available at the following URL: Try it out, and feel free to use it.

https://public-cdn.sharepointonline.com/n8dlab001.sharepoint.com/sites/BrandGuide/Fonts/SegoeUI-VF.ttf

When you try to access this font, your browser redirects you to:

https://localhost/AccessOutsideSharePointIsNotAllowed

If not, a serious security hack occurs on the public CDN, and no one can access those assets.

There is nothing to worry about. This also applies to all the other Org Assets that are hosted on a public CDN.

Finally, the accurate information on this warning is that no classification can be applied, as there is no such feature available for the public CDN.

Don’t use this font

Don’t use this feature if your fonts contain proprietary information, or if they have license usage restrictions, such as restrictions on cloud hosting, or your organization isn’t comfortable making the fonts publicly available.

The first part of the sentence is unclear, and it’s not evident what proprietary information is being referenced. Fonts are designed to follow established specifications and generally do not contain proprietary information. Cloud hosting typically poses little to no problems, and every software product, including fonts, includes a license agreement that can be reviewed for its relevant terms and conditions.

The issue arises when you have a font but no license agreement, which implies that you don’t have the usage rights for this font. This would be the only situation that could make you uncomfortable using the font at all, and would be considered piracy.

The rest of the document is standard and describes only what Microsoft does, with the warning that a license is required for web use.

Practical Example: Segoe UI Variable

In one of my recent blog posts, I discussed how to overcome the variable font limitation in the brand center.

Below you will find the license agreement Microsoft provides for Segoe UI.

You may use the Segoe and icon fonts, or glyphs included in this file (“Software”) solely to design, develop and test your programs that run on a Microsoft Platform, a Microsoft Platform includes but is not limited to any hardware or software product or service branded by trademark, trade dress, copyright or some other recognized means, as a product or service of Microsoft. This license does not grant you the right to distribute or sublicense all or part of the Software to any third party. By using the Software, you agree to these terms and conditions. If you do not agree to these terms, do not use the Software. – Source: Segoe UI Variable EULA

I used the font on a Microsoft Platform, specifically SharePoint, so I am permitted to use the font. Microsoft allowed me to download the font freely using their “Design resources from Windows Apps” (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/design/downloads/#fonts).

Can I use the font on my blog or website? No, I would have to buy a license from myfonts.com, for example.

To host Segoe UI on my blog, which is a single typeface option, would cost at least 203€ a year.

Consequently, when I searched for “Segoe UI Variable”, I found and downloaded the Microsoft font. However, like the previous example, it did not include a license file.

Verdict

The official documentation should be more explicit in explaining these points. Specifically, it does not mention that access to the public CDN is restricted outside the SharePoint context. Through my own recent tests, I confirmed that while the CDN is technically public, access is limited—making it effectively private for tenants.

Additionally, the first paragraph of the documentation is ambiguous, requiring readers to interpret both the legal and technical implications independently.

Ultimately, Microsoft is not unfairly shifting responsibility. They are following standard industry practices for font licensing. Having a font installed on your company’s devices does not automatically grant permission to use it on the web or intranet. It is the organization’s responsibility to ensure licenses cover the intended uses—whether for public websites, intranets, or embedded applications.