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-GENTIUM-FAQ
-Gentium Basic Release 1.1
-4 April 2008
-========================
-
-Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about the Gentium fonts:
-
-
-General
-========
-
-How do you pronounce Gentium?
-
- The preferred pronunciation is with a soft G as in 'general', not a
- hard one as in 'gold': JEN-tee-oom.
-
-What is GentiumAlt?
-
- It is a version of the font with redesigned diacritics (flatter
- ones) to make it more suitable for use with stacking diacritics, and
- for languages such as Vietnamese. The Greek glyphs also use the
- Porsonic (single-curve) design for the circumflex. Since the main
- Gentium fonts do not currently include any 'smart' rendering routines,
- there is no easy way to access these alternate diacritic shapes from
- within the regular Gentium font. The encoding of the fonts are the same,
- so the same text can be viewed with either one. There is also no
- problem with having both font families installed at the same time.
-
-
-Licensing
-=========
-
-I want to use Gentium in my publication - can I?
-
- Gentium is released under the SIL Open Font License, which permits use
- for any publication, whether electronic or printed. For more answers
- to use questions see the OFL-FAQ. The license, alongside information
- specific to Gentium, is in the release package.
-
-I would like to bundle Gentium with my application - can I?
-
- This is our most common question. The SIL Open Font License allows
- bundling with applications, even commercial ones, with some restrictions.
- See the OFL file.
-
-Can I use the font on my web site?
-
- You can certainly create web pages that request that Gentium be used to
- display them (if that font is available on the user's system). According
- to the license, you are even allowed to place the font on your site for
- people to download it. We would strongly recommend, however, that you
- direct users to our site to download the font. This ensures that they
- are always using the most recent version with bug fixes, etc. To make
- this easier, we've simplified the URL for Gentium:
- http://scripts.sil.org/gentium
-
-Is Gentium going to stay free?
-
- There is no intention to ever charge users for using Gentium. The
- current version is licensed under a free/open license and future
- versions will be similar.
-
-
-Modification
-============
-
-I would like to modify Gentium to add a couple of characters I need. Can I?
-
- Yes - that is allowed as long as you abide by the conditions of the
- SIL Open Font License.
-
-So will you add glyphs upon request?
-
- If you have a special symbol that you need (say, for a particular
- transcription system), the best means of doing so will be to ensure
- that the symbol makes it into the Unicode Standard. It is impossible
- for us to add every glyph that every person desires, but we do place
- a high priority on adding pretty much anything that falls in certain
- Unicode ranges (extended Latin, Greek, Cyrillic). You can send us your
- requests, but please understand that we are unlikely to add symbols
- where the user base is very small, unless they have been accepted
- into Unicode.
-
-Can I send you work I've done to be incorporated into Gentium?
-
- Yes! See the FONTLOG for information on becoming a contributor.
-
-
-Technical
-=========
-
-Can you help me get Gentium working on my system?
-
- We cannot afford to offer individual technical support. The best
- resource is this website, where we hope to offer some limited help.
- However, we do want to hear of any problems you encounter, so that
- we can add them to the list of bugs to fix in later releases.
-
- Our contact address is <gentium AT sil DOT org>. Please understand
- that we cannot guarantee a personal response.
-
-I can't find all the extended Latin letters in the font. How do I type them?
-
- Gentium is Unicode-encoded, which means that the computer stores a
- special, unique code for each letter in your document. Since most
- keyboards do not have hundreds of keys, special software is needed
- in order to type the hundreds of special characters supported by the
- font.
-
-I can't find the 'o with right hook' in the font. Where is it?
-
- Combinations of base letters with diacritics are often called
- composite, or pre-composed glyphs. Gentium has hundreds of these
- (the ones that are included in Unicode). There are, however, many
- common combinations that are not represented by a single composite.
- It is possible to enter these into a document, but only as
- individual components. So 'o with right hook' would be entered as
- 'o', then 'right hook'. Although this may not look very good in some
- cases, we're not able to anticipate every possible combination.
- Future versions of Gentium will include 'smart font' support for
- technologies such as OpenType and SIL's Graphite. This will make
- diacritic positioning much better. The Gentium Basic fonts do,
- however, include limited support for both OpenType and Graphite,
- and demonstrate the type of support that will eventually be provided.
-
-Some diacritics are not aligning well with base glyphs, and if I type more
-than one diacritic, they run into each other. Why is that?
-
- Gentium currently has no 'smart font' code for automatic diacritic
- positioning, but the Gentium Basic fonts do, and similar support will
- appear in the main fonts in the near future.
-
-How do I type the Greek letters?
-
- You need a Unicode-compatible keyboarding system, which is not
- included in the distribution package.
-
-I'm having problems making PDFs -- why won't my document distill?
-
- Gentium is a large font, with lots of glyphs. As a result, some
- printers can balk at PDFs that have the complete font embedded. The
- easiest way to avoid this is to have Acrobat/Distiller subset the
- font. This is generally a good idea anyway (with any font) and can
- reduce the size of your files.
-
-
-Basic
-=====
-
-How are the Basic fonts (Gentium Basic, Gentium Book Basic) different
-from Gentium?
-
- These font families are based on the original Gentium design, but with
- additional weights. Both families come with a complete regular, bold,
- italic and bold italic set of fonts. The supported character set,
- however, is much smaller than for the main Gentium fonts. These
- 'Basic' fonts support only the Basic Latin and Latin-1 Supplement
- Unicode ranges, plus a selection of the more commonly used extended
- Latin characters, with miscellaneous diacritical marks, symbols and
- punctuation. In particular, these fonts do not support full extended
- Latin IPA, complete support for Central European languages, Greek and
- Cyrillic.
-
-What is the Book weight?
-
- It is a complete second font family that is slightly heavier overall,
- and more useful for some purposes. The main Gentium family will
- eventually have a complete matching Book weight, along with matching
- italics.
-
-Why is the line spacing greater for the Basic fonts?
-
- In some environments, stacked diacritics in Gentium could display as
- 'chopped-off'. Gentium Basic has slightly wider default line spacing
- in order to avoid this problem. Most applications do, however, let you
- set the line spacing explicitly, so you can have the lines spaced
- precisely as you wish.
-
-Will you be accepting requests for additions to the Basic character set?
-
- No. We are now focusing our development efforts on the main Gentium
- fonts, which already provide richer character set support.
-
-Is there an Alt version of the Basic fonts?
-
- No, although you may notice that capitals and some tall lowercase
- letters do use 'low-profile' versions.
-
-
-Future
-======
-
-Now that SIL International has taken over Gentium, who will be the next
-designer?
-
- Victor Gaultney will remain as primary designer, but Annie Olsen, a
- fellow type designer from the SIL Non-Roman Script Initiative, has
- joined the project team. She is a former calligraphy teacher, and is
- well suited for the task. Other members of the NRSI team will also
- add their expertise in technical matters.
-
-Do you plan to include other typographic enhancements (small caps, old style
-figures, etc.)?
-
- Those would be nice, wouldn't they? From a design point of view,
- it would be great to have these refinements, and we haven't ruled
- them out. But there are other needs that are much higher priority
- (Bold, Cyrillic, etc.). If you think you could contribute some of
- your time and effort to these enhancements, see the FONTLOG file for
- information on becoming a contributor.
-
-What about bold?
-
- The Gentium Basic fonts include Bold and Bold Italic versions. The
- main Gentium fonts will also include them in the future.
-
-Sans-serif?
-
- There is a definite need for a sans-serif font that shares some of
- Gentium’s strengths -- high readability, economy of space, etc. It
- would also be great if that font also harmonized well with Gentium.
- We don't currently have any plans for a companion face, although one
- of our other projects - Andika - may be useful. Andika is a sans-serif
- font designed specifically for use in literacy programs around the
- world, and is available from our web site.
-
-Will you be extending Gentium to cover other scripts, and Hebrew in
-particular?
-
- It is very unlikely that we would do this, as there are so many
- pressing needs in Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts. But you could
- contribute to the project.
-
-When will Cyrillic be completed?
-
- As soon as we can get it done, but it is still a few months away.
-
-I need a couple of ancient Greek glyphs, such as the digamma. When will
-those be ready?
-
- These have already been designed and will be in the next main release.
-
-Will there be a Type 1 version? What about OpenType?
-
- The next generation of Gentium will have OpenType, Graphite and AAT
- support. We do not plan to produce Type 1 versions at this time, but
- please write us if this is important (and tell us why). We are, however,
- considering releasing a version in OT-CFF format, but it will not go
- through the same careful testing as the standard OT/Graphite/AAT version. \ No newline at end of file