Doulos SIL - Versions and Changes

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Current versions

The latest version of the font is always available from the Doulos SIL download page as a .zip archive for all major platforms.

Doulos SIL is also available through the TypeTuner Web service, which allows you to choose among the smart font features and download a font with those features preset. This enables them to work in many applications that do not fully support OpenType.

Other Doulos SIL versions and variants

There are many font families based on the Doulos SIL design, as summarized in this table. Current versions are in bold. Additional information is provided in later sections.

Font Family Versions Status and use
Doulos SIL 7.000 Current—recommended for all uses and users
Doulos SIL 4.000–6.200 No longer recommended—please use current version
Doulos SIL Compact 4.106–6.200 Fonts with reduced default line spacing—no longer recommended
Doulos SIL Literacy 4.014–6.200 Literacy variants with alternate a and g forms—no longer recommended
Doulos SIL Literacy Comp 4.106–6.200 Compact literacy variants—no longer recommended
Doulos SIL Literacy AmArea 5.000–6.200 Literacy variants with AmArea features—no longer recommended
Doulos SIL special variant 5.000–6.200 Modified versions for special purposes (AmArea, Mali, Tat)—no longer recommended
Doulos SIL region subset 5.000 Subsets for particular regions (Afr, Am, APac, Cyr, CyrE, Eur, Phon, Viet)—no longer recommended

Versions prior to Doulos SIL v4.000 were named SIL Doulos and are no longer available.

There are also font families named ‘Doulos something’ that were created using TypeTuner Web. We have no record or archive of most of these ‘tuned’ fonts, but if you are desperate to find them contact us. We may be able to point you to the distributors of those that we know about.

Compact versions

Doulos SIL version 7 does not have a Compact variant. Most users should use the version 7 font and adjust line spacing explicitly within the application if necessary. If your application does not allow control over line spacing, you can use the version 6.200 Doulos SIL Compact font, which remains available. If you need any of the new version 7 features or characters, but also need them supported in a compact version please contact us.

Special-purpose modified variants

Modified versions of Doulos SIL version 6.200 are available that have been ‘tuned’ to turn on certain features by default. These are available for some regions and include Literacy versions. These remain at version 6.200 and have not been updated to Doulos SIL version 7. If you need any of the new features or characters in this version, but also need them supported in the special-purpose modified fonts please contact us.

Version 5 subsets

In the past, special subset versions of Doulos SIL version 5 were created for specific uses. Those fonts still work and remain available. These are limited versions of the fonts that support only the characters needed for a particular area or use. Subsets are available for Africa, Americas, Asia/Pacific, Europe/Eurasia, Vietnam, Phonetic, Cyrillic (Basic) and Cyrillic Extended. With the exception of the Phonetic font, the font subsets are intended for orthographic use only. We have not put anything in the other subsets for phonetic, transliteration, or transcription use. For those purposes, use the Phonetic subset. We do not intend to update these fonts, however they may still work. We do not, however, recommend their use. In almost all cases the standard font is a better choice. Font size is less of a concern than it was years ago, particularly with improved compression technologies such as woff2.

Previous versions archive

Previous versions remain available from our Previous versions archive.

Change history

A detailed list of changes for each version of the fonts is on the Version history page.