Arial Unicode font for Tamil, etc.?

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Level 2

491 points

Arial Unicode font for Tamil, etc.?

Looking for some style alternatives to the InaiMathi font included in OS X for the Tamil language, I noted at the the Gallery of Unicode Fonts that the Arial Unicode font includes Tamil characters, and remembered that that font is now included with OS X (10.5). I checked with Character Palette and indeed the Tamil characters are there, but they aren't recognized as equivalent to those in InaiMathi. And when I try to change some Tamil words in a document from InaiMathi to Arial Unicode, nothing happens.

I don't understand a lot about Unicode, but I know the Arial Unicode font has been around for a while (it was more or less the original effort to create a single Unicode font including all the major alphabetic scripts), and don't understand why it would contain the Tamil character set but not work for that script. It doesn't seem to work for Tibetan either, though it contains that character set as well. In fact, according to Character Palette, it seems about 90% of Arial Unicode is "character variants" that "won't display correctly". What's it for, then, anyone have any idea?

MacBook Pro 17" 2.16GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.2), 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, SuperDrive

Posted on Jun 30, 2008 1:26 PM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,252 points

Jul 1, 2008 3:34 AM in response to HandyMac

for instance, some text entered in the OS X Devanagari or Tibetan fonts can be selected and changed to a Windows OT font, though combined letterforms will deconstruct (Character Palette can be used to fix them).

I have always thought Windows fonts cannot be used for display. Could you describe how you use Character Palette to do that? If you have an example of the word "hindi" हिन्दी displaying correctly in a Windows font, could you send me a screen shot at large size (like 64)? (tom at bluesky dot org)

I guess like you say, that font must be "blocked" somehow. I have another version (earlier, 0.84) of Arial Unicode from the Windows environment, and tried that also, with the same result. So the "blocking" must be somewhere in the OS, I guess.

The reason they do this is because a lot of documents and web pages could specify Arial in them and users would get the idea that OS X does not support Devanagari, Tamil, Tibetan, etc unless they switch the font, which is impossible in Safari.

I was hoping to see OpenType fonts enabled for complex scripts in 10.5 (there was even what seemed to be a substantial rumor to that effect). No such luck. Maybe Apple will get around to it in Snow Leopard...? Would be nice; there are a lot of really nice OT fonts for South Asian scripts that we still can't use.

I agree, but have doubts this will happen soon. Perhaps more likely is an app like Mellel which does OpenType could be expanded to cover these scripts. In the meantime, OpenOffice/X11 does work for display I think. This might interest you:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1577715&tstart=0

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Answer 2

HandyMac Author

Level 2

491 points

Jul 1, 2008 10:19 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

+I have always thought Windows fonts cannot be used for display. Could you describe how you use Character Palette to do that?+

Well, not "display" in the sense of opening a file using an OpenType font on the Mac and seeing it display properly. What I do in Character Palette with an OpenType font like Sanskrit2003 is scroll through the font to find the elements I want and double-click them to enter them in a document. Of course this workaround is feasible only for the occasional word, not for whole sentences or paragraphs. I'm not a big time user of any of this, so I can manage for the occasional word I want.

+The reason they do this is because a lot of documents and web pages could specify Arial in them and users would get the idea that OS X does not support Devanagari, Tamil, Tibetan, etc unless they switch the font, which is impossible in Safari.+

Yeah, I can see the reason; but wouldn't it be easier in the long run to just enable OpenType fonts so everyone can use the same fonts? And it is annoying that you can't specify fonts in Safari like in Camino.

+I agree, but have doubts this will happen soon. Perhaps more likely is an app like Mellel which does OpenType could be expanded to cover these scripts.+

Several years ago the developer of Mellel assured me that v.2 would support Indic scripts. But it never happened.

+In the meantime, OpenOffice/X11 does work for display I think.+

Yes, OpenType fonts can be used in OpenOffice/X11 (which is no longer being developed, BTW, now that there's a native OS X version). But not AAT fonts.

+This might interest you:+
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1577715&tstart=0

Indeed, though much of it is over my head. I just want to be able to use the same fonts for Indic languages as everyone else, just as I can in Chinese, etc.

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,252 points

Jun 30, 2008 2:44 PM in response to HandyMac

don't understand why it would contain the Tamil character set but not work for that script. It doesn't seem to work for Tibetan either, though it contains that character set as well. In fact, according to Character Palette, it seems about 90% of Arial Unicode is "character variants" that "won't display correctly". What's it for, then, anyone have any idea?

PC's and Mac's use completely different font technology to handle complex scripts like Tamil, Tibetan, Devanagari, etc. Mac's require AAT fonts as supplied by Apple. Arial Unicode is a non-AAT PC font which is useful for certain scripts, like Georgian, but access to all those which would not work correctly on a Mac has been blocked.

The only Tamil fonts other than InaiMaithi that will work on a Mac are those supplied by

http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxTamil.html

I don't know how different these are.

It might be possible to use PC (OpenType as opposed to AAT) Tamil fonts with the app OpenOffice/X11 -- I can't remember if that works or not (it does for Devanagari and Tibetan).

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/TypingTamil.html
http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/typingtibetan.html

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Answer 4

HandyMac Author

Level 2

491 points

Jun 30, 2008 6:35 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hi, Tom, thanks for the response. Yes, I know that Windows OpenType fonts for complex scripts can't be used for text entry in OS X, but I've found such fonts can often used for display -- for instance, some text entered in the OS X Devanagari or Tibetan fonts can be selected and changed to a Windows OT font, though combined letterforms will deconstruct (Character Palette can be used to fix them).

I tried a couple of Windows Tamil fonts, and could change some InaiMathi words to those fonts (though they didn't work perfectly). So what puzzled me was that when I tried to do the same with Arial Unicode, nothing changed at all. I guess like you say, that font must be "blocked" somehow. I have another version (earlier, 0.84) of Arial Unicode from the Windows environment, and tried that also, with the same result. So the "blocking" must be somewhere in the OS, I guess.

I was hoping to see OpenType fonts enabled for complex scripts in 10.5 (there was even what seemed to be a substantial rumor to that effect). No such luck. Maybe Apple will get around to it in Snow Leopard...? Would be nice; there are a lot of really nice OT fonts for South Asian scripts that we still can't use.

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Answer 5

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,252 points

Jul 1, 2008 4:36 AM in response to HandyMac

I was hoping to see OpenType fonts enabled for complex scripts in 10.5

PS I forgot to mention that this did occur for Arabic, at least for some apps:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2007/10/leopard-can-use-windows-arabic-fonts.html

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Answer 6

orangekay

Level 5

4,085 points

Jun 30, 2008 1:43 PM in response to HandyMac

These documents would have to have been written in unicode for this to work.

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