Re: Normalisation and font technology

From: John Hudson (tiro@tiro.com)
Date: Tue May 28 2002 - 19:57:07 EDT


At 14:49 5/28/2002, Markus Scherer wrote:

>John, you seem to say "normalization" but mean "decomposition".
>Please note that there are several normalization forms, and the most
>popular one is NFC, typically using code points for precomposed characters.

Yes, I should have clarified that I was talking about decomposition as an
aspect of normalisation, and not normalisation per se.

>Your email suggests that MacOS is using NFD, which I find surprising.

This is as reported to me by Mac OS X users. I do know that providing AAT
'mort' table susbtitutions for canonical composition/decomposition was a
requirement for an OS X system font that we manufactured for a client who
had licensed it to Apple.

It would be good to have an explanation from Apple as to what they have
done, why they have done it, and what problems/solutions they envisage for
existing fonts without such glyph substitution information.

John Hudson

Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com

When the pages of books fall in fiery scraps
Onto smashed leaves and twisted metal,
The tree of good and evil is stripped bare.
                                        - Czeslaw Milosz



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