Challenges in Publishing with Non-Roman Scripts
Intended Audience: |
Software Engineers, Content Developers, Font Designers, Graphic Designers, Technical Writers |
Session Level: |
Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced |
The process of typesetting books is more complex than "just" having the
right encoding for specific characters. This paper will address
technical and design challenges which can often be found in publishing
of texts using non-Roman scripts. It is by no means exhaustive, but is
intended as a starting point for those who are interested in the area of
publishing.
Included are examples of a potentially unending list of design issues that
the typesetter needs to be conscious of. Rather than simply following
instincts that derive from another script (typically Roman), and culture
(typically Western), one needs to learn culturally appropriate ways to
handle these design issues. With the advent of computers some changes
have occurred within scripts, probably because of the difficulties of
implementing a particular script behaviour. While the typesetter may
choose to diverge from traditional typesetting standards for a
particular script, it should be done carefully and with good reason.
Overall page design is not something discussed much but certainly varies
depending on the script. There are also a number of technical challenges
when it comes to actually implementing a design. Besides issues of
directionality there are issues of hyphenation, line breaking (including
justification), column behaviour, what ordered lists and whether
headers, footers, and footnotes should be horizontal or vertical.
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