Re: converting devanagari to mangal unicode

From: John Hudson (tiro@tiro.com)
Date: Mon Dec 16 2002 - 17:39:23 EST

  • Next message: Eric Muller: "Re: converting devanagari to mangal unicode"

    > > I am Gis/Website developer my query is
    > >
    > > I have a data in devanagri true type font i want to convert
    > > this data into mangal unicode.
    > >
    > > I want to know whether any converter is available for
    > > converting devanagari to mangal unicode.

    This is, excuse the pun, a bit of a mangled question. Mangal is Microsoft's
    Hindi UI font; it is an OpenType font that uses glyph substitution and
    positioning to correctly display the Devanagari script on top of a standard
    Unicode text string. In order to convert any Devanagari font to be rendered
    in the same way, two steps are necessary:

    1. Make sure that the font has a Unicode cmap table and that the base forms
    of Devanagari characters are encoded in it in accordance with the Unicode
    standard.

    2. Use Microsoft's free VOLT tool to add OpenType Layout tables for glyph
    substitution and positioning.

    There is no automated way to do such a conversion, although various
    sub-stages could be automated within particular tools (e.g. defining
    Unicode cmap mappings from glyph names in FontLab). The nature of the
    OpenType Layout lookups required will depend on the glyph repertoire of the
    individual font.

    See http://www.microsoft.com/typography/specs/default.htm for more
    information about making OpenType fonts for Devanagari and other scripts.

    John Hudson

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

    A book is a visitor whose visits may be rare,
    or frequent, or so continual that it haunts you
    like your shadow and becomes a part of you.
                            - al-Jahiz, The Book of Animals



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