dhosek@freke.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) (03/23/91)
In article <1991Mar22.104403.20011@news.nd.edu>, voyager@irishmvs.cc.nd.edu writes: > I have a couple of harried members in my user group who have asked for a > serbo-croation font. I don't even know how to spell it, but if it exists, could > someone please point in the right direction. Hmm, do you really mean a "serbo-croation font"? That would be almost like asking for an Indian font. Serbian and Croatian differ in their alphabets: The Serbs use a Cyrillic alphabet and the Croats use a Roman alphabet (for those of you who are interested in such things, this is one of the surface indications of the tensions in Yugoslavia... not the difference in alphabets, per se, but the cultural differences impied therein). Anyway, there are two possibilities: (1) you need a Croatian font which is Roman with a few odd diacriticalizations. I have no experience with Croatian but I assume the character set is like Slovenian. In this case, the Mac encoding may be sufficient (I have no idea what's in it) and ISO 8859/1 or the IBM PC 8-bit character lack certain characters. A good system using PostScript should allow you access to the characters that are necessary (Word(im)Perfect and TeX are two that come to mind) for typesetting Croatian. Serbian is another keg of beans. It is a cyrillic alphabet, but has extra letters. I know of four Cyrillic fonts, two of which are adequate for Serbian: wncy* for TeX (available from ymir.claremont.edu [anonymous.tex.babel.russian.fonts-uwash] (YES, I know) Glasnost Fluent Laser Fonts (downloadable PostScript) from Cassidy & Green. Commercial, but I believe under $100. Monotype New Times Cyrillic (downloadable PostScript. I have a press release at work with some samples, but I don't know about cost) The first is in MF format and generates bitmaps for use with TeX (although the bitmaps could be converted to other formats with some effort). The design is based on Computer Modern The second is a commercial Type 3 PostScript font. It looks a bit ragged on my LJ3. There are four families included: an Avant-Garde derivative, a Peignot derivative, a Century Schoolbook derivative and a Script font based, I believe, on Park Avenue, but don't quote me on that. I don't work too much with frilly display fonts. The last font on the list is, as mentioned, a Type 1 PS font and has all the inherent advantages (compactness, improved quality, etc.) of that format. However, chances are it's a bit pricey. Still, it's a really nice looking typeface judging by the samples Monotype released. -- Don Hosek | To retrieve files from ymir via the mailserver, dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu | send a message to mailserv@ymir.claremont.edu Quixote Digital Typography | with a line saying send [DIRECTORY]FILENAME 714-625-0147 | where DIRECTORY is the FTP directory (sans ---------------------------+ "anonymous") and FILENAME is the filename, e.g. "send [tex]00readme.txt". There is a list of files in each directory under the name 00files.txt. Binary files are not available by this technique.
wcsemb@ccs.carleton.ca (E. Bacic) (03/25/91)
As far as a Croatian alphabet goes, TeX more than suffices. The characters
of the alphabet are the standard Roman chars (as was indicated in an
earlier post) but also use the following accents (in TeX format):
v v v v
\v hacek -- over the c, s, and z c s z
,
\' grave -- over the c c
and an odd one, a d (or D) with a small bar (like a minus sign)
through the pillar. This one you have to dick around with since TeX
doesn't supply a - type accent. I tend to make a \def which kerns
a dash over the appropriate point.
Of course, all of this can be done via PostScript, but don't ask me how
because I use TeX and have it dump the stuff to PostScript ;-).
The alphabet is:
v , _ v v
A B C C C D D E F G H I J K L Lj M N Nj O P R S S T U V Z Z
and the corresponding lower case (of course).
Note, the letters Nj and Lj (and their lower case lj and nj)
are usually done with the j slightly lower than normal and pulled
into the "parent" letter. However, you can fake it if you don't want
to "drop" the j by simply placing the j next to its "parent". Croats
will figure it out -- I know, I am a Croat and I've seen stuff from
Croatia from relatives using this system, though not in books and the
like.
Don't ask me about Cyrillic, though. Can't read it and don't want to.
I leave Cyrillic to the Russians and the Serbs who love it so much...
emb
wcsemb@alfred.ccs.carleton.ca