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.
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