Frequently Asked Questions
Is Andron a historic typeface or a new one?
A new one. Andron has been designed entirely from scratch, ca. 20 years ago. But its classical style has been a very concious choice. The most obvious reference for it is the Venetian-Bembonian tradition of Latin printing types.
What is Andron intended for?
Mainly for scientific editing and comprehensive works in the humanities, such as liguistics, historic science and archeology, philosophy, phonetic and dialect studies, classic and medieval studies. This is the scope of subjects on which Andron’s character repertoire is focused in the first place.
Due to its classical style and excellent legibility Andron is also very suitable for novels and other genres of literature.
TIP: If your web browser allows to customize the choice of typefaces for displaying websites, choose Andron. You’ll find that the text of many websites will look great and are very comfortable to read, e.g. Wiki articles about script and language-related topics.
What languages are covered by Andron?
Practically every language worldwide which is written in either the Latin, Cyrillic, Greek or Coptic script, plus a couple of others, also ‘dead’ ones (e.g. Old Norse, Gothic or Mandaic).
What makes Andron a unique typeface?
It’s combination of a vast character repertoire with a classical typographic style and sophisticated execution.
Is the new Andron webfont package the same as the Andron Mega suite?
The short answer is: Yes, but. The current Andron – both web and desktop formats – bears version no. 2.0 because it is a major upgrade of Andron Mega (last version 2021: 1.5), coming with a couple of important novelties.
In this new version many parts of the fonts have been carefully revised (e.g. the figures, some of the accents), which makes this new version the best Andron ever. A number of tiny improvements have been applied to to the Greek lowercase (basic and polytonic): some of the glyphs have been overhauled and some previous spacing issues have been cleared. The Regular font has been enhanced with three additional scripts: Hebrew (basic), Mandaic and Cherokee.
What do I need to know when switching from Andron Mega to Andron 2.0?
In general – it is the same typeface, with enhanced possibilities and coverage. When changing an existing text layout to the new version, it could happen here and there that line breaks change, due to some (minor) kerning adjustments. This precaution counts especially for the new Greek since it runs overall a little wider than in the previous Andron (Mega) versions. – Apart from that: good to know is that there are now various new OpenType figure sets, ligatures and functions for fractions, scientific superiors and inferiors available.
What OpenType functions are in Andron?
The functionalities for ligatures and discretionary ligatures work simultaneously in all four standard fonts, mainly for Latin, in a few cases for Greek. As a special convenience handy keystrokes have been implemented to easily create a couple of arrows in the text (using endash and < or >).
In all six fonts full sets of numerators, denominators as well as oldstyle figures, tabular lining figures and oldstyle tabular figures are implemented.
In the two SC fonts the standard and tab. figure sets are special small capital figures matching the x-height of the small caps.
The widths of all the tabular figures is the same throughout the entire typeface, which makes the composing of neat table columns very easy. The fraction feature allows to set any fraction.
Scientific superior and inferior characters are needed in various subjects – not only math – for setting special text sequences. The sups- and the sinf-features activate full sets of figures, Latin upper and lowercase, Greek upper and lowercase and some punctuation and monetary characters in the Regular and Bold fonts. In the two Italic fonts this functions cover the figures and punctuation characters only.
The ‘local’ features allow for some advanced support of typographic specialities in Netherlands (ij and ij-acute ch.s), Marshallese, Romanian and Moldavian.
What about the PUA code space in Andron?
Since Andron has been developed in close cooperation with members of the MUFI network for many years, the MUFI character recommendation (which itself features Andron as the reference font) is the principal reference for Andron’s Private Use Area layout scheme. A great many works and Thousands of book pages have been set in Andron, utilizing these PUA-characters heavily; so the long-term stability policy about this is to definitely maintain the established practice in that respect. As in the past, the PUA usage in Andron will remain stable in the future. The only possible change may be eventual additions of more characters, while the existing ones will stay in place ‘forever’.
If I need some special characters not in Andron, what can I do?
When you still find something missing, tell me. Andron will be updated about once in a year, so there is a good chance for you to get what you need by the next update, in the not-so-distant future.
If you are thinking about proposing additional characters for Andron, please see the ‘Licencing & Contact’ section for further information.
What is the perspective of Andron in the future?
Andron is under constant maintenance since its first release and it will remain so in the long run. One of Andron’s acknowledged strenghts is the fact that its evolution is, to a considerable extent, the result of it’s users input. During all the years of development I have been listening to users and implemented their ideas and wishes, as far as possible. Wether it’s about a few special characters or entire scripts, I intend to continue this support in the future. Holders of a licence get upgrade options at very attractive rates when a new version of Andron is launched. The Andron story is that of a win-win situation: the typeface matures by it’s users influence – and users profit from a typeface which is just getting better and better over the years.
Which scripts will be added to Andron the upcoming years?
You tell me! Considering Andron’s scope of scripts coverage so far, obvious candidates may be Caucasian or Middle Eastern scripts. But also e.g. American or African scripts are worth consideration, if the need for those should be forwarded.
Will we see Egyptian Hieroglyphs in Andron?
I hope we will… one day.
I still have questions.
Do you have any further question about Andron? Contact me.
References (selected)
These institutions have implemented Andron webfont solutions in pilot projects.
- University of Verona (IT)
- Medieval Nordic Text Archive (MENOTA, Norway)
- Southeastern Louisiana University (Hammond LA, USA)/British Library (UK)
- Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI)
These institutions work with Andron extensively, in printed and other edition projects.
- Árni Magnússon Institute for Iceland Studies (Reykjavík, IS)
- Arnamagnæanean Institut, Copenhagen University (DK)
- Nordisk Forksningsinstitut, Copenhagen (DK)
- Buske publ. (Hamburg, D)
- Carlsen publ. (Hamburg, D)
- Fagbokforlaget Bergen (NO)
- Finnish Oriental Society/Helsinki University (FI)
- Freie Universität Berlin (D)
- Herbert Utz publ. (Munich, D)
- Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität Munich (D)
- Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI)
- Michael Gordon Studio Ltd., Tel Aviv (Israel)
- Brill publ./Ruhr University Bochum/Yale University (NL/D/USA)
- Norwegian State Archive (Oslo)
- Novus publ. (Oslo, NO)
- Österreichisches Museum für Volkskunde (Vienna, AU)
- The Philidor Company, Rhinebeck NY (USA)
- Schwabe publ. (Basel, CH)
- Schweizerische Rechtsquellenstiftung (Zurich, CH)
- Stadtarchiv St. Gallen (CH)
- Bergen University (NO)
- University College Dublin
- Erlangen University (D)
- Göttingen University (D)
- Uppsala University (S)
- Verona University (IT)
- Zurich University (CH)