GENTIUM-FAQ
Gentium Plus
========================

Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about the Gentium Plus
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.


Licensing
=========

I want to use Gentium Plus in my publication - can I?

	Gentium Plus 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 Plus, is in the release package.

I would like to bundle Gentium Plus with my application - can I?

	This is our most common question. The SIL Open Font License allows
	bundling with applications, even commercial closed source ones, with
	some restrictions. See the OFL.txt file and the OFL-FAQ.

Can I use the font on my web site?

	You can certainly create web pages that request that Gentium Plus be
	used to display them (both if that font is already available on the
	user's system or if it is delivered via @font-face). According to the
	license, you are also 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, there is a simple URL for Gentium: http://scripts.sil.org/Gentium
	There is further important discussion of webfont issues in the OFL-FAQ.

Is Gentium Plus going to stay unrestricted and available at no cost?

	There is no intention to ever charge users for using Gentium and its
	variants. The current version is licensed under a free/open license and
	future versions will be similarly unencumbered.


Modification
============

I would like to modify Gentium Plus 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 Plus?

	Yes. See the FONTLOG for information on becoming a contributor.


Technical
=========

Can you help me get Gentium Plus 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@sil.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 Plus 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. See the README.txt file for more information.
	
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 Plus 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.
	Gentium Plus includes 'smart font' support for both OpenType and 
	Graphite.
	
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?

	The smart diacritic positioning in Gentium Plus relies on either
	OpenType or Graphite. The application you are using must support
	one of these technologies in order to see appropriate diacritic
	positioning.
	
How do I type the Greek letters?

	You need a Unicode-compatible keyboarding system, which is not
	included in the release. 
	
I'm having problems making PDFs -- why won't my document distill?

	Gentium Plus is a large font, with lots of glyphs. As a result,
	some older printers, PDF distillers and readers can balk at PDFs
	that have the complete font embedded. The easiest way to avoid
	this is to have the PDF distiller subset the font. This is
	generally a good idea anyway (with any font) and can reduce the
	size of your files.


Plus
=====

How are the Gentium Plus fonts different from Gentium?

	This font is based on the original Gentium design, but with an expanded
	character and glyph repertoire. It currently comes with regular and 
	italic faces. It comes with near-complete support for Latin, Cyrillic
	and Greek. It also contains 'smart font' support for OpenType and Graphite
	technologies. This allows for correct diacritic placement over all base
	characters, whether they are tall, short, wide, narrow, with or without 
	descenders. It also provides for a large variety of alternates glyphs. 
	These are described on the Gentium website.
	
Why is the line spacing greater for the Plus fonts?

	In some environments, stacked diacritics in Gentium could display as
	'chopped-off'. Gentium Plus 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.
	
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. Gentium Plus also includes
	OpenType and Graphite features to turn low-profile diacritics on
	and off.
	
	
Future
======

What are your future plans for Gentium Plus?

	Our next major effort is completing bold and bold italic weights
	of Gentium Plus alongside a new Gentium Book Plus family. These new
	weights are currently available for Gentium Basic/Gentium Book Basic.

Do you plan to include other typographic enhancements (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
	(such as bold). If you think you could contribute some of your time 
	and effort to these enhancements, see the FONTLOG.txt file for
	information on becoming a contributor.

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.
	
Will there be a Type 1 version? What about OpenType?

	Gentium Plus includes OpenType and Graphite 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 already provide the PostScript
	bézier curves in the 'designsource' files in the developer release.