GENTIUM-FAQ
Gentium Release 1.02
28 November 2005
========================
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 Gentium
does 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