His full name in later life, incorporating the Austrian hereditary knighthood that he was given in 1860, was Alois Ritter Auer von Welsbach.

In his leisure moments, he studied French, Italian, English and other languages, in which he underwent an examination in 1835 and 1836 at the University of Vienna.

The ornamental typefaces that he implemented allowed greater flexibility in printing, and the enterprise was to become highly successful, meeting the requirements of 500 European dialects (exclusive of those Russian, Turkish and Hebrew) and almost 150 languages of the world.

[4] In this, he detailed the use of actual plant material, rocks and lace, impressed upon lead or into gum, to demonstrate what he saw as a major advance in the productions of botanical works.

He was the father of Carl Auer von Welsbach (1858–1929), the Austrian scientist who separated didymium into the elements neodymium and praseodymium in 1885.