Yes, Office2000 and OfficeXp do this too (better in XP), and IE has also
done it for several years (at least since IE5). For example with
Word2002 from OfficeXp, try typing any assigned Unicode value in hex
(e.g. U+15b4, or even 20456) then type "Alt-x". You'll see font fix-up
in action, provided you have fonts installed that support these Unicode
ranges. There are a couple of holes in the system but generally speaking
it will prevent you from getting missing glyphs.
With the support baked in the last two versions of the OS, 3rd party
developers don't really need to worry about getting "missing glyph"
problems either.
Though this might be good enough for people who just need to see what a
database contains it does not solve the horrific typographic issues of
mixing fonts that may not be stylistically related. Anyone wanting
decent looking text should be using rich text with specific fonts
assigned, not relying on font fallbacks and mega-fonts...
Chris
Sent with OfficeXP final release
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael (michka) Kaplan [mailto:michka@trigeminal.com]
Sent: October 18, 2001 9:29 PM
To: cfynn@druknet.net.bt; Mark Davis; unicode@unicode.org
Subject: Re: Windows/Office XP question
Actually, in Windows 2000 and even moreso in Windows XP, Uniscribe
achieves
this, by properly doing both font substitution and handling of mixed
script
usage (XP is a bit better than Win2000 as they added additional Indic
scripts and also because they to a beit better of a job in sizing mixed
script cases so you do not have the "normal sized Latin next to
ultra-tiny
Thai" problems that Win2000 could occasionally hit.
This is not done by means of a font grouping, but more by having a
specific
preferred font for every supported script any time the chosen font does
not
support the script in question.
MichKa
Michael Kaplan
Trigeminal Software, Inc.
http://www.trigeminal.com/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher J Fynn" <cfynn@druknet.net.bt>
To: "Mark Davis" <mark@macchiato.com>; <unicode@unicode.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 8:58 PM
Subject: RE: Windows/Office XP question
>
>
> Mark Davis wrote:
>
> > One feature that
> > some systems have is composite fonts, where the "font" is actually a
table
> > of subfonts in some order (perhaps with specific ranges assigned to
each).
> > That way, someone can have the advantage of specifying a single font
name,
> > and get a full repertoire, without requiring a monster font. Of
course,
> > there may be little uniformity of style across scripts, or in
mixtures
of
> > symbols, but at least you can get legible characters instead of
boxes.
> >
> > Are there any plans to do something like that in Windows?
> >
> > Mark
> > -----
>
> On some level at least this already seems to be implemented in Windows
with system / GUI fonts. e.g. in Win 2K Unicode file-names etc are
displayed
in the proper script in Windows Explorer if the system font for that
script
is installed. There are seperate system / GUI fonts for each script,
rather
than one huge font.
>
> A problem with implementing something which allows you to specify a
single
font name and getttng a full repertoire is: Which font in script x
matches
font nnnn in script y? If I specify "Baskerville" for Latin text and
that
text contains a run of Arabic characters how does the system know which
Arabic script text best matches Baskerville? Sure you could have a
lookup
table - but imagine getting users to maintain such a table with all the
fonts some people accumulate these days. Font matching systems like
Panose
which might be used to automate this kind of thing seem to deal only
with
the characteristics of Latin and closely related scripts.
>
> - Chris Fynn
>
> --
> Christopher J Fynn
> DDC Dzongkha Computing Project
> PO Box 122, Thimphu, Bhutan
>
> <cfynn@druknet.net.bt>
> <cfynn@gmx.net>
>
>
>
>
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