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1GENTIUM-FAQ
2Gentium Release 1.02
328 November 2005
4========================
5
6Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about the Gentium fonts:
7
8
9General
10========
11
12How do you pronounce Gentium?
13
14 The preferred pronunciation is with a soft G as in 'general', not a
15 hard one as in 'gold': JEN-tee-oom.
16
17What is GentiumAlt?
18
19 It is a version of the font with redesigned diacritics (flatter
20 ones) to make it more suitable for use with stacking diacritics, and
21 for languages such as Vietnamese. The Greek glyphs also use the
22 Porsonic (single-curve) design for the circumflex. Since Gentium
23 does not currently include any 'smart' rendering routines, there is
24 no easy way to access these alternate diacritic shapes from within
25 the regular Gentium font. The encoding of the fonts are the same, so
26 the same text can be viewed with either one. There is also no
27 problem with having both font families installed at the same time.
28
29
30Licensing
31=========
32
33I want to use Gentium in my publication - can I?
34
35 Gentium is released under the SIL Open Font License, which permits use
36 for any publication, whether electronic or printed. For more answers
37 to use questions see the OFL-FAQ. The license, alongside information
38 specific to Gentium, is in the release package.
39
40I would like to bundle Gentium with my application - can I?
41
42 This is our most common question. The SIL Open Font License allows
43 bundling with applications, even commercial ones, with some restrictions.
44 See the OFL file.
45
46Can I use the font on my web site?
47
48 You can certainly create web pages that request that Gentium be used to
49 display them (if that font is available on the user's system). According
50 to the license, you are even allowed to place the font on your site for
51 people to download it. We would strongly recommend, however, that you
52 direct users to our site to download the font. This ensures that they
53 are always using the most recent version with bug fixes, etc. To make
54 this easier, we've simplified the URL for Gentium:
55 http://scripts.sil.org/gentium
56
57Is Gentium going to stay free?
58
59 There is no intention to ever charge users for using Gentium. The
60 current version is licensed under a free/open license and future
61 versions will be similar.
62
63
64Modification
65============
66
67I would like to modify Gentium to add a couple of characters I need. Can I?
68
69 Yes - that is allowed as long as you abide by the conditions of the
70 SIL Open Font License.
71
72So will you add glyphs upon request?
73
74 If you have a special symbol that you need (say, for a particular
75 transcription system), the best means of doing so will be to ensure
76 that the symbol makes it into the Unicode Standard. It is impossible
77 for us to add every glyph that every person desires, but we do place
78 a high priority on adding pretty much anything that falls in certain
79 Unicode ranges (extended Latin, Greek, Cyrillic). You can send us your
80 requests, but please understand that we are unlikely to add symbols
81 where the user base is very small, unless they have been accepted
82 into Unicode.
83
84Can I send you work I've done to be incorporated into Gentium?
85
86 Yes! See the FONTLOG for information on becoming a contributor.
87
88
89Technical
90=========
91
92Can you help me get Gentium working on my system?
93
94 We cannot afford to offer individual technical support. The best
95 resource is this website, where we hope to offer some limited help.
96 However, we do want to hear of any problems you encounter, so that
97 we can add them to the list of bugs to fix in later releases.
98
99 Our contact address is <gentium AT sil DOT org>. Please understand
100 that we cannot guarantee a personal response.
101
102I can't find all the extended Latin letters in the font. How do I type them?
103
104 Gentium is Unicode-encoded, which means that the computer stores a
105 special, unique code for each letter in your document. Since most
106 keyboards do not have hundreds of keys, special software is needed
107 in order to type the hundreds of special characters supported by the
108 font.
109
110I can't find the 'o with right hook' in the font. Where is it?
111
112 Combinations of base letters with diacritics are often called
113 composite, or pre-composed glyphs. Gentium has hundreds of these
114 (the ones that are included in Unicode). There are, however, many
115 common combinations that are not represented by a single composite.
116 It is possible to enter these into a document, but only as
117 individual components. So 'o with right hook' would be entered as
118 'o', then 'right hook'. Although this may not look very good in some
119 cases, we're not able to anticipate every possible combination.
120 Future versions of Gentium will include 'smart font' support for
121 technologies such as OpenType and SIL's Graphite. This will make
122 diacritic positioning much better.
123
124Some diacritics are not aligning well with base glyphs, and if I type more
125than one diacritic, they run into each other. Why is that?
126
127 Gentium currently has no 'smart font' code for automatic diacritic
128 positioning, but will in the near future.
129
130How do I type the Greek letters?
131
132 You need a Unicode-compatible keyboarding system, which is not
133 included in the distribution package.
134
135I'm having problems making PDFs -- why won't my document distill?
136
137 Gentium is a large font, with lots of glyphs. As a result, some
138 printers can balk at PDFs that have the complete font embedded. The
139 easiest way to avoid this is to have Acrobat/Distiller subset the
140 font. This is generally a good idea anyway (with any font) and can
141 reduce the size of your files.
142
143
144Future
145======
146
147Now that SIL International has taken over Gentium, who will be the next
148designer?
149
150 Victor Gaultney will remain as primary designer, but Annie Olsen, a
151 fellow type designer from the SIL Non-Roman Script Initiative, has
152 joined the project team. She is a former calligraphy teacher, and is
153 well suited for the task. Other members of the NRSI team will also
154 add their expertise in technical matters.
155
156Do you plan to include other typographic enhancements (small caps, old style
157figures, etc.)?
158
159 Those would be nice, wouldn't they. From a design point of view,
160 it would be great to have these refinements, and we haven't ruled
161 them out. But there are other needs that are much higher priority
162 (Bold, Cyrillic, etc.). If you think you could contribute some of
163 your time and effort to these enhancements, see the FONTLOG file for
164 information on becoming a contributor.
165
166What about bold?
167
168 We hope to make a prototype of a Bold weight (and a few others,
169 including italic) available soon, but it will only cover basic Latin
170 glyphs at first. Once we are confident that the basic design is solid,
171 we will begin to design the bold versions of the other hundreds of
172 glyphs. Be patient, though, as Gentium has lots of glyphs!
173
174Sans-serif?
175
176 There is a definite need for a sans-serif font that shares some of
177 GentiumÕs strengths -- high readability, economy of space, etc. It
178 would also be great if that font also harmonized well with Gentium.
179 We don't currently have any plans for a companion face, although one
180 of our other projects - Andika - may be useful. Andika is a sans-serif
181 font designed specifically for use in literacy programs around the
182 world. A prototype should be available in a few months.
183
184Will you be extending Gentium to cover other scripts, and Hebrew in
185particular?
186
187 It is very unlikely that we would do this, as there are so many
188 pressing needs in Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts. But you could
189 contribute to the project.
190
191When will Cyrillic be completed?
192
193 As soon as we can get it done, but it is still a few months away.
194
195I need a couple of ancient Greek glyphs, such as the digamma. When will
196those be ready?
197
198 These have already been designed and will be in the next release
199 (mid-2006).
200
201Will there be a Type 1 version? What about OpenType?
202
203 The next generation of Gentium will have OpenType, Graphite and AAT
204 support. We do not plan to produce Type 1 versions at this time, but
205 please write us if this is important (and tell us why). We are, however,
206 considering releasing a version in OT-CFF format, but it will not go
207 through the same careful testing as the standard OT/Graphite/AAT version.
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