From: John Hudson (tiro@tiro.com)
Date: Mon Jul 04 2005 - 13:42:20 CDT
In my experience, there are two competing impulses among academic users. One is a desire
for stability, focused on habits developed in using 8-bit font solutions and hacked
encodings over many years. Users have developed work habits, and have sometimes large
numbers of documents in these hacked encodings, all of which would need to be changed and
converted for Unicode. On the other hand, there is recognition of the need for better and
standard interchange and also, of course, the needs of electronic publishing, which makes
Unicode attractive.
The Society of Biblical Literature Font Foundation is a good example of an academic-led
initiative, through which I've had to deal with both impulses. The primary goal of the
foundation is to collaboratively fund the development of Unicode and OpenType font
solutions for Biblical scholarship, to address the interchange issues that have plagued
the field for many years. But this work also involves development of multiple keyboard
drivers that mimic the input methods already in use with hacked encodings although,
obviously, now entering correct Unicode values, and also development of Word macros and
other tools to assist conversion of existing documents to Unicode. [A similar major effort
was undertaken in the Canadian North after the encoding of aboriginal syllabics in
Unicode. Documents in half a dozen or so different 8-bit encodings had to be converted
using macros.] And some members of the foundation have immediate publishing needs using
existing workflows that rely on hacked 8-bit encodings, and need to continue such
publishing while gradually making the switch to Unicode. Last year, I was asked to make a
version of the SBL Hebrew typeface that conformed to one such encoding, so that a
foundation member could start utilising the new design within their existing workflow.
Frankly, I was surprised -- and pleased -- that I've only had one such request.
John Hudson
-- Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com Currently reading: Truth and tolerance, by Benedict XVI, Cardinal Ratzinger as was An autobiography from the Jesuit underground, by William Weston SJ War (revised edition), by Gwynne Dyer
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