RE: script or block detection needed for Unicode fonts

From: Murray Sargent (murrays@Exchange.Microsoft.com)
Date: Sun Sep 29 2002 - 14:38:41 EDT

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    John Jenkins wrote:

            "This just seems wildly inefficient to me, but then I'm coming from an
            OS where this isn't done. The app doesn't keep track of whether or not
            a particular font can draw a particular character; that's handled at
            display time. If a particular font doesn't handle a particular
            character, then a fallback mechanism is invoked by the system, which
            caches the necessary data. I really don't see why an application needs
            to check every character as it reads in a file to make sure it can be
            drawn with the set font."
            

    Sigh. If I only had an OS like that to work with! There is the ransom-note effect though. Do you try to match the desired font characteristics? I should note that Windows XP does have limited "font linking" support as well, which works with system fonts. Unfortunately, system fonts have limited typographical appeal, so the missing-character/glyph problem is usually the responsibility of the application.

    Murray



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