From: Tommy Nordgren (tommy.nordgren@chello.se)
Date: Fri Apr 21 2006 - 17:47:40 CST
On 22 apr 2006, at 01.11, Philippe Verdy wrote:
> From: "Tommy Nordgren" <tommy.nordgren@chello.se>
>> Are there any fonts available that include glyphs for the entire
>> unicode character set?
>> (Macintosh compatible.)
>
> I think it's not possible for the existing TrueType/OpenType
> format, given the limitation on the total number of glyphs per font
> (but it may be possible with fonts which contain multiple designs).
>
> I see no interest in such giant font. At best, you'll find fonts
> that cover a whole Unicode plane (these fonts make better sense),
> and it will already be a very large font (notably a font that
> covers the Han ideographs, but it will be true as well for a font
> that would code the future Egyptian or Maya hieroglyphs).
>
> A font that completely covers the alphabetic scripts (including
> alphabets, abjads, abugidas) and syllabic scripts is already very
> large andvery complex to design, due to the number of
> substitutions, contextual forms, and fine hinting needed for
> drawing at small size or at low resolution on screen. And even this
> font needs constant updates to cover the additions in Unicode, or
> simply to correct bugs or limitations (missing substitutions or
> ligatures or contextual forms) or defects (bad hinting).
>
> Keep things small. What users do want is fonts that correctly and
> completely handle each script (letters, ligatures, digits) and
> related signs or symbols (notably punctuation, and notational
> marks). It's much easier to update fonts that cover correctly a
> limited set of scripts. And it's generally more reliable interms of
> results, given that some scripts require specific knowledge of the
> script by the typograph (notably the contextual forms, ligatures,
> and substitutions, but also the specific graphic design needed for
> some scripts that have very different metrics and layout, for
> example the hinting process for Han ideographs which requires
> specific algorithms due to their graphic complexity).
>
>
>
>
I realizes that such a font would require a lot of hard disk and ram
space. The context in which i want to use it is for editing plain
unicode text files. Text editors can't display documents in multiple
fonts depending on which script each character belongs to. To be
specific I want to edit test cases for a lexical analyzer generator
that I want to be able to handle unicode.
------------------------------------------------------
"Home is not where you are born, but where your heart finds peace" -
Tommy Nordgren, "The dying old crone"
tommy.nordgren@chello.se
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