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Gentium — Support

Victor Gaultney, 2004-03-16; 25161 reads

Download main Gentium fonts | Download Gentium Basic fonts

‘Commercial quality for free! That’s the best free font that I see.’

‘May I congratulate you on what seems to be an outstanding effort matched only by your generosity.’

We cannot afford to offer free technical support. Gentium has, however, been through some testing to be sure it works in most situations. In particular, it has been tested and shown to work on Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Windows 2000, Windows XP and GNU/Linux.

If you do find a problem, please do report it to the address below. We can’t guarantee any direct response, but will try to fix reported bugs in future versions.

For details of the current release, check the release notes.

Installation tips

After expanding the downloaded archive, simply install the fonts as you would any other fonts. If you have an earlier version of Gentium installed, uninstall it before installing this version.

In Mac OS X, copy the font files into the \Library\Fonts folder of your System disk. In Mac OS 9, drop the fonts onto your (closed) System Folder.

In Windows XP, open the Fonts control panel (Start/Control Panel/Appearance and Themes, then look in the upper left). Then drag the font files (ending in .ttf) into the window - or choose File/Install New Font..., and navigate to the files.

Consult your operating system help for additional information.

In GNU/Linux, a package is provided to simplify installation: Double-click on the downloaded deb (or rpm) file, type in your password when the package manager asks for it and everything will get installed. (You can then easily query the various elements of the package as well as remove the whole package through a smart package manager like synaptic.) All the detailed instruction (including manual installation procedures) are available on the Gentium Linux Page.

Note that this only gives you the fonts themselves. You will still need a Unicode-based application and a keyboard mechanism to enter special characters. Neither of these are included in this package (see below).

Troubleshooting

Many problems can be solved, or at least explained, through an understanding of the encoding and use of the fonts. Here are some basic hints:

Encoding: The fonts are encoded according to Unicode, so your application must support Unicode text in order to access letters other than the standard alphabet. Most Windows applications provide basic Unicode support. Very few Mac OS 9 applications do, but will allow use of the basic character set. More Mac OS X apps support Unicode. On both Macintosh and Windows you will, however, need some way of entering Unicode text into your document.

Keyboarding: Gentium does not include any keyboarding helps or utilities. It uses the built-in keyboards of the operating system. Consult your system help for information on how to install and use new keyboards. For example, if you wish to use the letters in the font that are needed for the Czech language, install the Czech keyboard.

If you are using Windows and want to enter characters that are not supported by any system keyboard, the Keyman program can be helpful. A list of known Keyman keyboard definition files, including a number for Greek, can be found here.

On Mac OS 9 there is no easy way to enter Unicode text. Mac OS X offers better Unicode support, and includes two special keyboard files: Extended Roman (U) and Unicode Hex Input that allow the entry of Unicode characters in some applications.

Another method of entering some symbols is provided by a few applications such as Adobe InDesign. They can display a glyph palette that shows all the glyphs (symbols) in a font and allow you to enter them by clicking on the glyph you want.

On GNU/Linux distributions like Ubuntu you can use KMFL, a smart input method compatible with Keyman keyboards.

Rendering: Gentium also lacks any special font programming that can substitute one glyph for another or position glyphs in a ‘smart’ way, such as in OpenType, Apple Advanced Typography or SIL's Graphite. For example, although Gentium includes an ‘ffl’ ligature, there are no special routines in the font that will automatically substitute ‘f’+‘f’+‘l’ with ‘ffl’, but an individual application might provide that feature.

You can also consult the Gentium FAQ for answers to common questions.

Contact

For information on Gentium please consult the Gentium web site, or send an email to:

(email concealed to avoid spam)

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