martin@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Johnny Martin) (04/27/88)
I am inquiring to the whereabouts of typesetting or wordprocessing
fonts for Tamil (a language of Southern India). If you have any
information regarding this, e-mail sent to one of the following
addresses would be appreciated.
martin@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu
or
martin@umn-cs.UUCP
Or reply to this newsgroup if you feel it is of general interest.
Thanks,
Johnny Martinjohn@titan.nmt.edu (John Shipman) (04/28/88)
In article <4969@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>, martin@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Johnny Martin) writes: > > I am inquiring to the whereabouts of typesetting or wordprocessing > fonts for Tamil (a language of Southern India). I haven't seen it, but try to get a copy of Stanford Computer Science report STAN-CS-83-965, by Pijush K. Ghosh, entitled ``Type Design and Composition for Indian Languages.'' I think this publication pertains to the TeX/METAFONT environment, but I'm not sure. -- John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, New Mexico USENET: ihnp4!lanl!unm-la!unmvax!nmtsun!john CSNET: john@jupiter.nmt.edu ``If you can't take it, get stronger.'' --Falline Danforth
shorne@hubcap.clemson.edu (Scott Horne, ) (04/28/88)
From article <4969@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>, by martin@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Johnny Martin): > > I am inquiring to the whereabouts of typesetting or wordprocessing > fonts for Tamil (a language of Southern India). Would people please post replies instead of e-mailing them? Here's one possibility: use the MLS word processor, which runs on IBM PC's. A demo may be found in comp.binaries.ibm.pc. The Tamil fonts must be ordered separately, though. Fonts for many other Indian languages are available, too. --Scott Horne
dow@wjh12.harvard.edu (Dominik Wujastyk) (04/28/88)
In article <212@titan.nmt.edu> john@titan.nmt.edu (John Shipman) writes: >In article <4969@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>, martin@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu >(Johnny Martin) writes: >> >> I am inquiring to the whereabouts of typesetting or wordprocessing >> fonts for Tamil (a language of Southern India). > >I haven't seen it, but try to get a copy of Stanford Computer Science >report STAN-CS-83-965, by Pijush K. Ghosh, entitled ``Type Design and >Composition for Indian Languages.'' I think this publication pertains >to the TeX/METAFONT environment, but I'm not sure. Ghosh's report describes his experiments in using METAFONT78 (now superceded) to create a Devanagari typeface. This is the script of Hindi, Marathi and some other North Indian languages, and is not used for Tamil. For Tamil typeface design in METAFONT, here is an extract from my memo on TeX fonts: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. TAMIL 2a Arthanari Date of information: December 26, 1987 Contact: According to Emma Pease (network response on 10 November 1987 to my query in TeXhax 1987, issue 93) a basic set of Tamil characters for TeX was designed at Stanford by T. S. Arthanari created when he was at Stanford (May-July 1985). Emma has the source code but does not want to distribute it further without his knowledge. His present address is Quality Informatics Labs, Ltd. 312, P. M. G. Complex 57, South Usman Rd. Madras, 600 017 INDIA (Address gotten by Emma from the Stanford Computer Science Dept.) There are approximately 160 characters in several styles written in a pre- release version of the current Metafont. Emma has only tried producing characters for one style but had little difficulty in doing so (a few commands had changed). They are rough but look fairly good. I (Dominik) am writing to Mr. Arthanari today to ascertain his intentions concerning his work, and especially to learn whether he is willing and able to allow the source code of his Tamil font to be distributed as public domain software. (March 10, 1988: still no answer.) 2b Ramanujan Date of information: Fri Jan 22 1988 (mail from Pierre MacKay) The font: Ramanujan, a graduate student who worked at Washington two years ago, designed a Tamil font in METAFONT84 (I think). According to Pierre MacKay, the problem with this, as with Ghosh's Devanagari, is that it was arbitrarily developed in a framework that bears no relation to the monotype- based character grid used for Computer Modern; this is unfortunate, since it makes it almost unusable in a bilingual environment. Moreover, it does not make much use of the macro capabilities of METAFONT, and although reasonably well designed, the programming could perhaps be improved. MacKay says that the people at Washington are continuing to work on it. Contact: Pierre MacKay, Phone: 206-543-6259; 545-2386. Net: MacKay@june.cs.washington.edu 2c Rengarajan Date of information: March 11, 1988 T. K. Rengarajan, a software engineer (Database Systems, Digital Equip. Corp.) mailed me on Fri, 5 Feb 88 and mentioned that he may do a METAFONT Tamil. Contact: ranga%debit.DEC@decwrl.dec.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dominik -- bitnet: user DOW on the bitnet node HARVUNXW arpanet: dow@wjh12.harvard.edu csnet: dow@wjh12.harvard.edu uucp: ...!ihnp4!wjh12!dow