Subject: Re: font for quotes (was Re: Some problems with the word importer...)
From: Birger Langkjer (birger.langkjer@image.dk)
Date: Tue Feb 22 2000 - 17:22:12 CST
Den tir, 22 feb 2000 22:20:05 skrev Paul Rohr:
..
> 1. Fix the fonts.
> ==================
> Over the long term, this is clearly the ideal solution. It would be a
> *very* useful project to remap existing fonts so the glyphs are indexed to
> the correct Unicode codepoints (instead of whatever charset they're
> currently encoded in).
>
> Unlike attempts to create *new* Unicode fonts, there's no need for
> typographic skills here. Basically, you'd just need code which knew how to:
>
> - open up a font file,
> - recognize the current charset / encoding,
> - remap the index for each code point (probably using libiconv),
> - and then save the "Unicoded" font back out to a new file,
> - being sure to update the charset indicator for that new font. ;-)
Perhaps the demo version of fontlab wil let you do this. It only allows you
to save 3 times, but I suppose we could organize something, I take 3, you take
3 etc. ;-) The registrered version has a *hefty* pricetag. If you're the type
of person that look on the internet after free software, Fontlab is out of
your league.
> I haven't tried to do this, but I suspect the biggest obstacle here would
> probably be the IP issues, if any.
The foundries are very protective about their artwork and their 'name', even if
they are willing to give the fonts away for free. They are not very fast either,
from the time they promise something till you actually get it in your hand, it
can take many, many months.
There are projects to create free fonts (for postscript mainly, I think), here's
one I found: http://www.ams.org/STIX/ Maybe it's worth looking at their stuff.
I don't know if it's only math.
> 2. Add code workarounds to let people use "broken" fonts.
> ==========================================================
..
I don't think it's worth to start doing this, eventually the fonts in XFree86 4.0
will be in iso10646-1.
-- Med venlig hilsen/Best regards/Amicalement Birger Langkjer http://members.xoom.com/langkjer
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