> No: common characters, such as parentheses or double quotes are supported
> even on my system. So, the mechanism is already in place on many systems.
Please, execuse me but I need more explanation in this issue. When I need to
enter parentheses or double quotes, I find two different symbols. Do you
mean that these two distinct symbols are actually one symbol and its mirror
made by the font designer? <don't laugh>I thought first that this mirror
property means I just insert one symbol in any application and by changing
the direction dir=rtl for example in FrontPage, I get the mirrored
one</don't laugh>And how can I differentiate between such a thing
and other sybmols which are made out of different glyphs. In summary, for me
as a user the mirror property means nothing whereas for a designer it means
a lot, am I right?
Thanks for your generous help
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marco Cimarosti" <marco.cimarosti@essetre.it>
To: "'Munzir Taha'" <munzirtaha@hotmail.com>
Cc: <unicode@unicode.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 1:27 PM
Subject: RE: how can I write an arabic square root
> Munzir Taha wrote (privately):
> > Thanks, what I can understand now is that it's practically
> > impossible to
> > insert the Arabic sqrt symbol, at least up to today, isn't it?
>
> (Sorry for sending these private message back to the Unicode Mailing List,
> but people there may have more information about Arabic fonts. Your
original
> question was about encoding, but fonts are a distinct issue.)
>
> Personally, I don't know a proper font for Windows. That does not mean
that
> it doesn't exist: as I don't speak any language written in Arabic
alphabet,
> I know just a few Arabic fonts.
>
> > Also, practically-speaking characters which have the mirror
> > property can't be mirrored up to now. Is it like this?
>
> No: common characters, such as parentheses or double quotes are supported
> even on my system. So, the mechanism is already in place on many systems.
>
> The problem is now just finding a Arabic font which also handles
> mathematical symbols properly. You could try seeking such a font on these
> sites:
>
> - http://www.microsoft.com/typography (about OpenType smart fonts);
>
> - http://fonts.apple.com (about ATSUI fonts, Apple's smart fonts).
>
> Moreover, depending on what you need to do, there are temporary ways of
> obtaining the proper glyph. E.g., you can draw your own font containing
just
> that sign, or you could insert a bitmap in your text.
>
> By the way, mathematics requires very complex typographical capabilities
> which are only handled by specific software. E.g., the square root symbol
> normally extends over the value. E.g.:
> ______
> |/ 15+10 = 5 (Western style)
> ______
> 5 = 10+15 \| (Arabic style)
>
>
> Similar layouts can only be achieved by specialized math packages. Every
> package handles these things in its own way, and standardization is still
at
> the very beginning (for Unicode mathematics, see
> <http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr25/>: "Proposed Draft - PDUTR #25:
Unicode
> Support for Mathematics").
>
> Good luck.
> Marco
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Marco Cimarosti" <marco.cimarosti@essetre.it>
> > To: "'Munzir Taha'" <munzirtaha@hotmail.com>
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2002 3:44 PM
> > Subject: RE: how can I write an arabic square root
> >
> >
> > > > Take a look at this page
> > > > http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/BidiMirroring.txt
> > > > It says: "The following characters have no appropriate
> > > > mirroring character
> > > > ... #221A"
> > >
> > > Yes. And have you read the explanation at the top of the file?
> > >
> > > BidiMirroring.txt lists all the character which have the "mirrored"
> > property
> > > and, as you see, 221A is included.
> > >
> > > For some of these characters (especially parentheses, quotes, and
> > arrow-like
> > > operators) there is another Unicode character which looks
> > like a mirror of
> > > the first character.
> > >
> > > For these characters, font designers don't need to draw a special
> > > right-to-left glyph, because they can reuse the
> > left-to-right glyph of the
> > > other characters.
> > >
> > > For all the other characters (including 221A), this saving cannot be
> > > achieved, and font designers have to provide both the
> > left-to-right and
> > > right-to-left glyphs.
> > >
> > > The purpose of BidiMirroring.txt is showing for which pairs
> > of mirrored
> > > character fonts can save the two right-to-left glyphs.
> > >
> > > Rgds.
> > > Marco
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Munzir Taha [mailto:munzirtaha@hotmail.com]
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2002 12:56 AM
> > > > To: Marco Cimarosti
> > > > Subject: Re: how can I write an arabic square root
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Take a look at this page
> > > > http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/BidiMirroring.txt
> > > > It says: "The following characters have no appropriate
> > > > mirroring character
> > > > ... #221A"
> > > > > In Unicode, there is no need for right-to-left versions of
> > > > mathematical
> > > > > symbols.
> > > > You will find right-to-left versions of mathematical symbols.
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Marco Cimarosti" <marco.cimarosti@essetre.it>
> > > > To: "'munzir taha'" <munzirtaha@hotmail.com>;
> > <unicode@unicode.org>
> > > > Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 9:34 PM
> > > > Subject: RE: how can I write an arabic square root
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Munzir Taha wrote:
> > > > > > It's just a english square root symbol flipped horizontally.
> > > > > > I think there should be one in the unicode, doesn't it?
> > > > >
> > > > > In Unicode, there is no need for right-to-left versions of
> > > > mathematical
> > > > > symbols. The square root character U+221A is the same for
> > > > English and
> > > > > Arabic.
> > > > >
> > > > > The trick is that this kind of characters (punctuation,
> > > > operators, symbol)
> > > > > have a property, called "mirrored", which causes them to be
> > > > displayed with
> > > > a
> > > > > reversed glyph when in a right-to-left paragraph.
> > > > >
> > > > > This is the theory: in order to make it really happen, you
> > > > should have
> > > > > support for "smart fonts" (such as OpenType), and the smart
> > > > font you are
> > > > > using should contain proper mirrored glyphs.
> > > > >
> > > > > Unfortunately, I don't know a single font being able to do this.
> > > > >
> > > > > _ Marco
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Thu Mar 28 2002 - 00:52:19 EST