Dear list members,
I have just finished reading Ken Lude's "CJKV Information Processing"
(O'Reilly, 1999). While I found much of the information contained in that
book highly helpful, I can't help the feeling that its structure might need
a slightly more systemmatic approach.
What I definitely missed from the book, was a clear overview of major
platforms (operating systems and applications), and font formats supported
therein.
So far, I was able to come up with the following list of formats which I'd
be glad to know, if and how well where they are supported:
1. Win Type 1-based CID fonts (Adobe font Type 9 / CID font Type 0)
2. Mac Type 1-based CID fonts (Adobe font Type 9 / CID font Type 0 + FOND +
fbit)
3. Win TrueType-based CID fonts (Adobe font Type 11 / CID font Type 2)
4. Mac TrueType-based CID fonts (Adobe font Type 11 / CID font Type 2 + FOND
+ fbit)
5. Mac sfnt-wrapped CID fonts (+ FOND)
6. Mac TrueType fonts (sfnt + FOND) -- what encoding?
7. Mac TrueType GX/AAT fonts (?) -- what encoding?
8. Win TrueType/OpenType fonts (TTF), cmap 3.1 Unicode encoding
9. Mac Type 1 fonts (+FOND) -- what encoding?
10. Win Type 1 fonts (.pfb) -- Standard Encoding + AGL+uniXXXX naming
(Unicode-compatible)
11. Win TrueType Collections (.ttc)
12. Mac/Win OpenType OTF fonts -- cmap 3.1 Unicode encoding
Any ommissions? (As for outline formats).
Then, on the other hand, there is a list of platforms which I would like to
know if and how is CJK text supported, and also Arabic/Indic text supported
where:
a) Microsoft Office 2000/XP on Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP
b) RichEdit 3.0 applications (WordPad) on Windows 9x/ME
c) RichEdit 3.0 applications (WordPad) on Windows NT/2000/XP
d) other major Unicode-aware applications on Windows 9x/ME (Unicode support
how?)
e) other major Unicode-aware applications on Windows NT/2000/XP (Unicode
support how?)
f) Microsoft Office 98/2002 on MacOS 9.x
g) other major wordprocessors on MacOS 9.x
h) major wordprocessors on MacOS X
i) ATSUI/AAT applications on MacOS 9.x (what are they?)
j) ATSUI/AAT applications on MacOS X (what are they?)
k) Adobe InDesign 1.5x on MacOS/Windows
l) Adobe InDesign 1.0J on MacOS/Windows
m) other European versions of Adobe applications on MacOS/Windows
n) Asian versions versions of Adobe applications on MacOS/Windows (what are
they?)
o) other non-Asian major applications on MacOS 9.x (give examples)
p) other non-Asian major applications on MacOS X (give examples)
r) other non-Asian major applications on Windows 9x/ME (give examples)
s) other non-Asian major applications on Windows NT/2000/XP (give examples)
t) other Asian-enabled major applications on MacOS 9.x (give examples)
u) other Asian-enabled major applications on MacOS X (give examples)
v) other Asian-enabled major applications on Windows 9x/ME (give examples)
w) other Asian-enabled major applications on Windows NT/9x/2000 (give
examples)
Plus a few particular questions:
i) What software and font combination (possibly no specialty solutions) is
required for setting and reading CJK, Arabic, and Indic text on:
A. Windows 9x/ME
B. Windows 2000/XP
C. MacOS 9.x
D. MacOS X
ii) What major applications on MacOS use CID fonts? What flavor (out of 1-5
listed above)? What ATM is required?
iii) What major applications on Windows use CID fonts (out of 1, 3 listed
above)? What ATM is required if any?
iv) What major applications on MacOS 9.x or MacOS X can use Unicode-encoded
Win TTF fonts? Do these applications/systems check the 3.1 encoding or 1.0
encoding?
v) What fonts can be used with WordScript II on MacOS 9.x?
vi) How is the multilingual support implemented in MacOS X? :))
vii) What is the status of TTC fonts, and their relation to OpenType?
I would appreciate any light that you could shed on the current market
situation. I'm primarily investigating non-specialty software which is
available in English language and may be purchased by customers in Europe
and North America.
I would mostly appreciate explicit answers, but also links, references,
corrections and additions to my understanding sketched above etc.
Thank you in advance,
Adam Twardoch
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