Junicode – The Font for Medievalists

This is the development site for Junicode 2, a radically rebuilt version of the widely used free font for medievalists, linguists, and specialists in many academic disciplines. (Versions of Junicode 1 are also hosted here, beginning with version 1.03.) Junicode 2 features full compliance with the recommendation of the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative, version 4.0, plus later additions and revisions, and its OpenType programming has been rebuilt with a view to promoting accessibility and searchability in web pages and other electronic document formats.

The Junicode 2 font

• will, when complete, have the same character set in all faces;
• has five weights (Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold)
• and five widths (Regular, SemiCondensed, Condensed, SemiExpanded, Expanded);
• includes a variable font (in both tff and cff2 flavors) with three axes: width, weight, and the custom Enlarge axis;
• has improved outlines,
• an expanded collection of small caps (covering all case-paired characters),
• a more comprehensive set of anchors for mark positioning,
• and an expanded collection of OpenType features—carefully chosen and organized to promote the display of accessible text.

Users of the various versions of Junicode 1 need to be aware that documents originally set in Junicode 1 may reflow when set in Junicode 2. Further, documents that use the OpenType features of Junicode 1 (aside from basics like kerning and standard ligatures) may not be displayed properly when changed over to Junicode 2.

Junicode 1 is still (as of October 2021) the current stable version of the font. However, no new features will be added to Junicode 1, though bugs will be fixed when necessary.

The roman face of Junicode 2 is in beta testing. Interested users are encouraged to try it out and report bugs by opening issues on this site. The italic face is about 91% complete and still in a rough condition. It should not be relied upon for production work until the character set is complete (probably some time in 2022).

Resources

A specimen page.

My Twitter feed, where I'll share new developments from time to time.

A discussion forum where you can post queries about the fonts and how to use them.

An essay on making Searchable and accessible texts with Junicode and JunicodeVF.

An introduction to the Enlarge axis: what it's for and how to use it.

Test/demonstration of high-level CSS font properties in Junicode 2