Indian language fonts to be included as default fonts in windows

[Ashok Kothare]

I have developed Indian Language fonts to be used on english key board. I
have been giving them to all those who want to use them on windows to write
in Indian languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Sindhi, Bhojpuri and
more free of cost. My suggestion to microsoft is that they should accept
these fonts as default fonts on their windows version of today and tomorrow.
This will definitely improve use of windows in Indian Homes. Mcrosoft is
already havig some versions of fonts to write in these languages but they
need a special driver to be installed additionally. With my fonts which are
based on default keyboard driver can work like english fonts on all microsoft
programmes and also on other window based programmes. I am doing it to
promote use of computers in Indian homes since, english is still not the
language of Indian homes. My idea is, if microsoft accepts this suggestion
many more users shall benefit by this facility. Presently, I can reach only a
fraction of user through my resource. I want all concerned to vote for my
suggestion for the benefit of all. I shall give my fonts to those interested
in trying them if they ask for them on my email IDs (e-mail address removed),
(e-mail address removed), (e-mail address removed)
Hope to get your full support for this worthy cause. Thanks,
Ashok Kothare.

----------------
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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...9082c4&dg=microsoft.public.word.docmanagement

 

[Vikrant]

The problem, Ashok, with developing Hindi (Devanagri) fonts is not that they
don't exist but that the characters on the English keyboard are not standard.
I used to have over 40 different Hindi fonts developed by different people.
However, there was always one common problem: none of the keys were
standard. For example: the Hindi "k" or "kh" would be found on the "k" key
on one key but if I changed the font, it would be found on an entirely
different key! This caused many problems and every time I would have to
relearn the keys. One can imagine the heartache caused if every time you
changed fonts using the roman script, you would have to relearn the keyboard.

I think our first step before adopting the font should be a comprehensive
analysis of all Hindi characters and incorporating these onto the standard
keyboard. This also includes having unique ASCII codes. I know that there
are Hindi typewriters (not keyboards!) but I have not been able to get my
hands on any of these. This would be the first place to start because the
keys are "standard". Developing a haphazard system of assigning hindi
characters to any key has many risks for the reasons above. In addition, we
need to identify ALL possible characters (i.e. "ka", half "ka", visarg, ardha
visarg, placing "ka" beneath some letters as in a subscript (which is common
in some words), etc.. The Devanaagri (more comprehensive than Hindi)
typewriter, I believe managed to capture all of these nuances and not just
common symbols. I, however, commend you on your effort.

Perhaps, first, we need to begin by users who know of or have a hindi
typewriter to:
1. Take a picture of this keyboard (which hopefully identifies the keys) and
gives a layout of how this keyboard was developed
2. Email all possible combinations of these hindi/sanskrit characters to
Mr. Kothare so that we can truly develop a comprehensive and unified system
of coding keys that will remaiin constant, regardless of which font a user
chooses.
Thanks,

Vikrant.

 

[grammatim]

This has nothing whatsoever to do with MSWord, but it is for exactly
the reasons described by Vikrant that Unicode was developed beginning
more than 15 years ago. It is fully implemented in Windows, and by
simply (yes, _simply_) enabling the IME for any of the languages using
Devanagari, any computer in the world running Windows, or Mac OS X, or
Linux, and probably other systems as well, will be able to read the
text, with all the vowel matras and all the compound aksharas properly
formed.

Most, if not quite yet all, of the standard South Asian scripts are
implemented. The last time I checked, Oriya was not yet available, but
that may have changed by now.

And once your text has been typed -- probably in the default font
Tahoma, which tends to be quite ugly -- you can at will change it to
any font that is similarly encoded for Unicode.

It would thus be a real contribution if Ashok Kothare would assign
Unicode codings to his carefully designed Devanagari fonts, so that
they can be used by anyone who needs to type Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi,
etc. etc.
**
And, you can set Windows to use many languages -- I personally don't
know how many languages of India this has been done for yet -- as the
system operating language.

[I'm not at all sure why my .sig, which is normally appended to all
newsgroup messages sent through google groups, doesn't appear in this
newsgroup, but I am Peter T. Daniels, co-editor of *The World's
Writing Systems* (Oxford UP, 1996), and I did all the typesetting in
scores of scripts, using only pre-Unicode Mac fonts (a number of which
I created myself -- including Oriya and Javanese) that were limited to
the 255 minus 32 characters available in an ASCII font.]

 

[Ashok Kothare]

Both Vikrant and grammatin have missed the issue. As for vikrant I must say
thanks for atleast admiring my effort to help writing Indian languages with
english keyboard. Grammatin may not be knowing that unicode for devnagari are
still not standardised. Even if tommorrow they are standardised using them
may need a separate multikeyed (126 keys) keyboard. It is a big work to do
all that and so at present using english unicode and english keyboard to
write Indian languages is by far the best option. Grammatin says he used many
fonts and mastering their each key notations was not easy. I agree to his
point and that is because all the fonts he has tried are with special drivers
to get large number of characters on english key board. Speciality of my
fonts is that I have developed keyboard set up and that is copyrighted. Fonts
made with that keyboard set up makes it possible to write almost all marathi,
hindi, sindhi, konkani and also bhojpuri and such modern indian languages but
for sanskrit only up to 95% can be writen. And that is not a big problem
since, my expectation is that these fonts are used for modern languages and
not sanskrit. By one estimate user of modern languages are 99.999% and user
of sanskrit are the rest 0.001%, this may explain my point.
If my suggestion is accepted a large number of users will benefit immensly
since thay will get fonts in the price of the window and no extra cost. This
shall make using computers all the more economical. Presently fonts of
private makers are costing a price and they each have their special problems,
not to mention of.
I hope this satisfies friends.
Ashko Kothare

 

[grammatim]

Both Vikrant and grammatin have missed the issue. As for vikrant I must say
thanks for atleast admiring my effort to help writing Indian languages with
english keyboard. Grammatin may not be knowing that unicode for devnagari are
still not standardised.

If Devanagari is in Unicode (and it is), then by definition it is
standardized. I happen to have the Sanskrit and Hindi IMEs activated
on my computer at the moment and I have no trouble typing Sanskrit and
Hindi, on my ordinary 107-key keyboard.

Even if tommorrow they are standardised using them
may need a separate multikeyed (126 keys) keyboard. It is a big work to do
all that and so at present using english unicode and english keyboard to
write Indian languages is by far the best option. Grammatin says he used many
fonts and mastering their each key notations was not easy. I agree to his
point and that is because all the fonts he has tried are with special drivers
to get large number of characters on english key board.

No; as I said, I was using a Mac, before Unicode, and there were no
"font drivers" in a Mac: there were only sets of 223 glyphs (255 less
32) assigned to the 223 available slots in an ordinary font. It was in
fact impossible to make all Indian fonts interconvertible, because
compound aksharas are formed differently in the different scripts, but
it was possible to type every one of the ten standard Indic scripts
(Devanagari, Bangla, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu,
Kannada, Malayalam, Sinhala) using the standard Mac keyboard, which is
almost identical in layout and inventory to the standard PC keyboard.

Speciality of my
fonts is that I have developed keyboard set up and that is copyrighted. Fonts
made with that keyboard set up makes it possible to write almost all marathi,
hindi, sindhi, konkani and also bhojpuri and such modern indian languages but
for sanskrit only up to 95% can be writen. And that is not a big problem
since, my expectation is that these fonts are used for modern languages and
not sanskrit. By one estimate user of modern languages are 99.999% and user
of sanskrit are the rest 0.001%, this may explain my point.

Then, I'm sorry to say, your product is not adequate -- the Mac fonts
and keyboard software created by Ecological Linguistics in the 1980s
and 1990s could handle _all_ the needs of all the languages, classical
and modern.

If my suggestion is accepted a large number of users will benefit immensly
since thay will get fonts in the price of the window and no extra cost. This
shall make using computers all the more economical. Presently fonts of
private makers are costing a price and they each have their special problems,
not to mention of.
I hope this satisfies friends.

The fonts and IMEs (what you may be referring to as "font drivers")
_are_ included in the price of Windows (XP and Vista; I can't say how
many years ago they were introduced). (All you need to do is go to the
Control Panel called Regional and Language Options and install them.
You will probably be asked to insert your Windows CD.) For most of the
Indic scripts, only one font is included -- Tahoma -- and it is not
particularly attractive. Thus if you, Ashok, have created good-looking
fonts for Devanagari (and the other nine scripts), then you will sell
many more copies if they are Unicode- and Windows-compatible than if
they simply sit on top of the Latin-1 Unicode encoding (and no one
will be able to share files with anyone who has not purchased your
fonts, at, as you say, extra cost).

 

[Ashok Kothare]

Dear Grammatim, we are working for windows and not mac. One more point he
missed is that my fonts are free of cost. Interesting enough my fonts work
very well on both mac and linux. XP has now devnagari fonts but to activate
them one need go in controll panel and activate the driver to make them
functional. unless thet are supported by such drivers they cannot come and it
is experienced that quite often XP fails to activate them and one is
helpless. Quite often computer stops responding and one has to close the
machine. Luckily Grammtim's computer is working well. But when he may
experience this he will admit usefullness of my fonts! With my fonts this
situation can not arrive because my fonts are based on keyboard default
driver. And so thery are more relieble. Grammatim may not be aware that
Indian users are not so competent to work all that. A very specialised
working that XP needs is not understood by these people accrding to my
experience. So to make work easy for our indian users my fonts are today
found to be of much use . Grammatim, this is not just writing text but my
intention is to make available fonts on internet also. Devnagari fonts with
extra driver are not accepted easily by many browsers and also servers such
as hotmail, goggle, yahoo etc. Since my fonts are ASCII based (english
unicode) they can be easily accepted by these servers. If servers accept
these fonts business in email and other internet activity shall grow in
volumes. Today people can not communicate properly in english and so email
activity is limited to english only but when my fonts are made available to
them people will spend more time on internet and that is business. And so my
suggestion is having many hidden benefits which we can not discuss on this
platform.
I hope my explanation clears the doubts about extra usefullnes of my fonts
to windows and internet.
I must thank grammtim for the lively interaction. Sadly I did not find any
new point in his reaction.
Actually I had sent one reply a little while ago but I felt that the reply
is not sent and so this is second reply.

 

[grammatim]

Dear Grammatim, we are working for windows and not mac.

I was explaining to you that Windows handles this _better_ than Mac,
because Unicode is fully implemented.

One more point he
missed is that my fonts are free of cost. Interesting enough my fonts work
very well on both mac and linux.

You never said -- are they TrueType? or are they PostScript?

XP has now devnagari fonts but to activate
them one need go in controll panel and activate the driver to make them
functional.

A very simple procedure that needs to be done only once. If you buy a
computer in India, it presumably comes with those "drivers" already
activated, because your operating system presumably is set for Hindi,
Tamil, etc.

unless thet are supported by such drivers they cannot come and it
is experienced that quite often XP fails to activate them and one is
helpless.

Admittedly, I have never heard of anyone having trouble activating
them, but I have not known many people who tried.

Quite often computer stops responding and one has to close the
machine. Luckily Grammtim's computer is working well. But when he may
experience this he will admit usefullness of my fonts! With my fonts this
situation can not arrive because my fonts are based on keyboard default
driver. And so thery are more relieble. Grammatim may not be aware that
Indian users are not so competent to work all that.

Neither am I, certainly. I never used a Windows computer before
September 2005 and very shortly I was familiar with typing in non-
Roman scripts.

Before that, I used precisely the sort of fonts you are describing,
ones that sit uncomforably on top of roman-alphabet fonts, where
nearly all the compound aksharas had to be typed by using keys other
than the ones for the basic consonant aksharas.

A very specialised
working that XP needs is not understood by these people accrding to my
experience.

You just said that Indians are stupid!

So to make work easy for our indian users my fonts are today
found to be of much use . Grammatim, this is not just writing text but my
intention is to make available fonts on internet also. Devnagari fonts with
extra driver are not accepted easily by many browsers and also servers such
as hotmail, goggle, yahoo etc. Since my fonts are ASCII based (english
unicode) they can be easily accepted by these servers. If servers accept
these fonts business in email and other internet activity shall grow in
volumes.

If they are not found on every individual's computer, then those
individuals will not be able to read those websites. If the websites
use Unicode-encoded characters, then anyone with a basic Windows
installation (XP or Vista, at least, and probably earlier ones as
well) will be able to read the websites.

Today people can not communicate properly in english and so email
activity is limited to english only but when my fonts are made available to
them people will spend more time on internet and that is business.

People happily transliterate non-roman-alphabet languages into roman
alphabet for using email in any language.

And so my
suggestion is having many hidden benefits which we can not discuss on this
platform.

_None_ of this topic is appropriate on this newsgroup.

I hope my explanation clears the doubts about extra usefullnes of my fonts
to windows and internet.
I must thank grammtim for the lively interaction. Sadly I did not find any
new point in his reaction.
Actually I had sent one reply a little while ago but I felt that the reply
is not sent and so this is second reply.

Yes, this is the first response to my posting at 11:05 am on Feb 19.

 

[Ashok Kothare]

Dear Grammatim, you have again got on wrong footing. We are talking of
windows and not mac. Interesting enough my fonts come very well on both O/S,
linux and mac. Second point you have talked of, me getting money from the
fonts, there again you have gone wrong. I have been giving my fonts to
interested people free of cost. Even to Microsoft Corporation I want to offer
them 'as user' these fonts without any cost. So Microsoft, if accept my offer
they are not going to pay me for using my fonts. You may wonder then why am I
doing this, well, that shall be discussed with Microsoft when time comes. You
say some fonts you are using are unicode based and so you feel that Devnagri
unicode is available. There
again you go wrong. If you have a font making programmer (many are available
on internet) you will see that all the Devnagri fonts you are using are based
on unicode of English and not Devnagri! If you want to know more about
unicode position of Devnagri you may open a web site called Bhashaindia.com
and you will come to know that the process is still going on and no final
decision is done. I, having interest in fonts, have been studying it
regularly. Actually what allotments are made are such that a workable font
just can
not be made from that table. And so we have to depend on English unicode for
some more time. All the fonts you talk about are as I said are driver based
and they are not acceptable to internet browsers. Only keyboard based fonts
are easily workable at present and that is why not a single browser and so
server are having the fonts you have mentioned on their font file. I talked
about keyboard requiring more than 105 keys because I want the keyboard to
accept all devnagri fonts without a driver programme to support it. You were
correct in saying that you can write using your normal English keyboard with
those fonts and that is because only driver based fonts can come on English
keyboard. Particularly for joint words called 'jodakshar' help of driver is a
must. Then you may ask, if so, how your font work with English keyboard? To
solve this problem I use segments of each breakable consonant in Devnagri.
Method popularly known as type writer mode. Because of that I can get all the
characters and also joining them correctly to get 'jodakshar' without any
difficulty. This of course, makes writing a little slow but that is not a big
problem. We have been using type writer for a long time and this was the only
method used on those machines. I am sure if Microsoft accepts this offer
business of Microsoft in Indian market will be greatly improved since, at
present only English knowing people mainly use computers. When devnagri will
be possible all local language people who are a great number will work on
computers adding to the business. My main interest as I have given hint
earlier is with internet use of my fonts. All the fonts you have talked of
are not acceptable to internet for reasons already mentioned. And so I expect
that my offer will be accepted by Microsoft and we work together. You have
asked about the type of my font. My fonts are true type.
Thanks for the interesting interaction I had with you, Grammatim. I hope
this clears your doubts about necessity of my offer.

 

[grammatim]

Dear Grammatim, you have again got on wrong footing. We are talking of
windows and not mac.

Yes. I have been telling you that Windows handles this _better_ than
Mac.

Interesting enough my fonts come very well on both O/S,
linux and mac. Second point you have talked of, me getting money from the
fonts, there again you have gone wrong. I have been giving my fonts to
interested people free of cost. Even to Microsoft Corporation I want to offer
them 'as user' these fonts without any cost. So Microsoft, if accept my offer
they are not going to pay me for using my fonts. You may wonder then why am I
doing this, well, that shall be discussed with Microsoft when time comes. You
say some fonts you are using are unicode based and so you feel that Devnagri
unicode is available. There
again you go wrong. If you have a font making programmer (many are available
on internet) you will see that all the Devnagri fonts you are using are based
on unicode of English and not Devnagri!

You are simply wrong. Open the "Insert Symbol" panel in Word, set the
font to Tahoma and the encoding to Unicode, and you will see a drop-
down menu listing the character ranges available in the font. You will
see a variety of Indic scripts included there.

If you double-click on any of the Indic characters included, it will
be inserted into your document, and if you try to change its font to
some "English"-only font, it will not change.

It is clear from what you write below that you do not know how to use
the resources built into every Windows computer. Since you are not
willing to learn, there is no point in attempting to communicate with
you further.

And the site you should be visiting is called unicode.org.

I happen to own the printed book of the Unicode Standard v. 1.0, and
all the way back in 1991 it included all nine Indic scripts of India,
fully implemented. (Sinhala was not included, perhaps because India
had better connections with the computing world than Sri Lanka.)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

FWIW, I don't see Indic characters in Tahoma, but I do see them in Arial
Unicode MS.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Dear Grammatim, you have again got on wrong footing. We are talking of
windows and not mac.

Yes. I have been telling you that Windows handles this _better_ than
Mac.

Interesting enough my fonts come very well on both O/S,
linux and mac. Second point you have talked of, me getting money from the
fonts, there again you have gone wrong. I have been giving my fonts to
interested people free of cost. Even to Microsoft Corporation I want to
offer
them 'as user' these fonts without any cost. So Microsoft, if accept my
offer
they are not going to pay me for using my fonts. You may wonder then why
am I
doing this, well, that shall be discussed with Microsoft when time comes.
You
say some fonts you are using are unicode based and so you feel that
Devnagri
unicode is available. There
again you go wrong. If you have a font making programmer (many are
available
on internet) you will see that all the Devnagri fonts you are using are
based
on unicode of English and not Devnagri!

You are simply wrong. Open the "Insert Symbol" panel in Word, set the
font to Tahoma and the encoding to Unicode, and you will see a drop-
down menu listing the character ranges available in the font. You will
see a variety of Indic scripts included there.

If you double-click on any of the Indic characters included, it will
be inserted into your document, and if you try to change its font to
some "English"-only font, it will not change.

It is clear from what you write below that you do not know how to use
the resources built into every Windows computer. Since you are not
willing to learn, there is no point in attempting to communicate with
you further.

And the site you should be visiting is called unicode.org.

I happen to own the printed book of the Unicode Standard v. 1.0, and
all the way back in 1991 it included all nine Indic scripts of India,
fully implemented. (Sinhala was not included, perhaps because India
had better connections with the computing world than Sri Lanka.)

 

[Ashok Kothare]

Dear Vikrant,
Grammatim is a little less patient on these matters. So I now prefer to talk
to you. Your point that we do not have standardised keyboard set up is very
true. If you remember about 50 years ago in USA the same condition prevailed.
American government passed an act of ASCII and standardised the keyboard. It
was possible to that govenment because all computer masters such as IBM,
Microsoft, Adobe and more were americans. Today we have similar situation for
Indian languages. Our government has also passed similar act called ISCII but
that is not followed because 1) indian market is not big enough to bother
about our problem, 2) we prefer to work with english than any other of our
languages. 3) amongst indians devnagri is used by atleast 6 different
languages and the character requirements of each is different. I know
Malayalum and Tamil unicode is standardized and that was possible because
both scripts are used by single language each, 4) each year atleast 2 to 3
more font makers come in market to sell their fonts adding to the number of
fonts, 5) each font is copy righted and so nobody can copy other's keyboard
set up for legal reasons. My offer to Microsoft is actually to remedy this
problem. Supposing Microsoft accept my offer and actually include my fonts
with my keyboard set up then users will not bother to go for other fonts and
rest with my fonts. This shall in return bring about a type of
standardization of key board. Second advantage will be that, once devnagri
fonts are accepted as default fonts always readily available on the computer,
non-english users shall immerge in great numbers adding to the business of
computers. According to my information Microsoft has devnagri fonts by
arrangement with some indian font maker and that is at a premium price adding
to the cost of the software. Again that keyboard setup is copy righted and so
no body can copy that set up and design fonts. Here my offer comes with
advantage. How? Let me explain, My fonts are available free of cost to
Microsoft and so if they accept them they have nothing to loose but the users
benefit immensly. In case some font maker wants to use my keyboard set up to
make his fonts he can do it by paying to me the royalty charges. In this
process more and more fonts with great many varieties will be available to
users. As you have said you got 40 fonts in devnagri I request you to ask for
my fonts on my email (e-mail address removed) and you will get them by reply
free of cost. Initially I started doing this because I want non-english
people to take to computers in a big way. Actually I am a hobbist and making
fonts is not my busines but hobby and so I can do this, which profesional
font makers can not do at all. I have seen that fonts made by these
professionals are not workable on all window versions. As new versions come
old fonts are discarded and users have to buy again next version of that
font. This makes using these fonts very painful and discourages users. My
fonts being keyboard default driver based can come on all versions of windows
present and future. This prospect has already made my fonts popular in users.
Grammatim suggests to use insert font from word. This works so long as you
are working in word. If you want to work in photo paint, page maker,
photoshop and such different programmes these fonts do not work. With my
fonts user can work freely in all the programmes workable on windows and so
they have an advantage above those fonts. I thing it is immaterial whether a
font is ascii based or unicode based so long as it works on the machine
properly. Insistance for unicode fonts have in some cases caused problems
with keyboards. Not all keyboards respond well for them but all makes of
keyboards do respond for ASCII based fonts very well. I mean let us be a
little more practical in solving this problem of having relieble devnagri
fonts on windows. hope this explains my stand on the issue.

 

[Beth Melton]

I'm not sure how you made your offer to Microsoft but if the only method you
used is the 'Suggestion to Microsoft' post type in the newsgroup then
unfortunately it will likely fall on deaf ears. Microsoft doesn't monitor
these newsgroups or the Suggestion posts. For example, if you filter this
group for "Suggestions with Microsoft Response" you'll see exactly 1
Microsoft response to a suggestion. That was about 3 years ago. You may also
want to note the response was around 10 months after the initial suggestion.

Oh, and did I mention the post was actually a test for suggestions to see if
MS would actually respond? Interestingly, the response was posted not long
after several of us drew attention to the fact MS wasn't responding to
Suggestion posts in the newsgroup. <g>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton

 

[Ashok Kothare]

I appreciate your advice Beth Melton. If this is not the way to offer my
fonts to MS then what is the right method of approach to MS? Can you suggest.
Thanks for the advice.

 

[Ashok Kothare]

Dear Vikrant,
Grammatim is a little impatient on these matters. So I now prefer to talk to
you. Your point that we do not have standardised keyboard set up is very
true. If you remember about 50 years ago in USA the same condition prevailed.
American government passed an act of ASCII and standardised the keyboard. It
was possible to that govenment because all computer masters such as IBM,
Microsoft, Adobe, apple and more were americans. Today we have similar
situation for Indian languages. Our government has also passed similar act
called ISCII but that is not followed because, 1) indian market is not big
enough to bother about our problem, 2) we prefer to work with english than
any other of our languages. 3) amongst indians devnagri is used by atleast 6
different languages and the character requirements of each is different. I
know Malayalum and Tamil unicode is standardized and that was possible
because both scripts are used by single language each, 4) each year atleast 2
to 3 more font makers come in market to sell their fonts adding to the number
of fonts, 5) each font is copyrighted and so nobody can copy other's keyboard
set up for legal reasons. My offer to Microsoft is actually to remedy this
problem. Supposing Microsoft accept my offer and actually include my fonts
with my keyboard set up then users will not bother to go for other fonts and
rest with my fonts. This shall in return bring about a type of
standardization of key board. Second advantage will be that, once devnagri
fonts are accepted as default fonts always readily available on the computer,
non-english users shall immerge in great numbers adding to the business of
computers. According to my information Microsoft has devnagri fonts by
arrangement with some indian font maker and that is at a premium price adding
to the cost of the software. Again that keyboard setup is copyrighted and so
no body can copy that set up and design fonts. Here my offer comes with
advantage. How? Let me explain, My fonts are available free of cost to
Microsoft and so if they accept them they have nothing to loose but the users
benefit immensly. In case some font maker wants to use my keyboard set up to
make his fonts he can do it by paying to me the royalty charges. In this
process more and more fonts with great many varieties will be available to
users. As you have said you got 40 fonts in devnagri I request you to ask for
my fonts on my email (e-mail address removed) and you will get them by reply
free of cost. Initially I started doing this because I want non-english
people to take to computers in a big way. Actually I am a hobbist and making
fonts is not my busines but hobby and so I can do this, which profesional
font makers can not do at all. I have seen that fonts made by these
professionals are not workable on all window versions. As new versions come
old fonts are discarded and users have to buy again next version of that
font. This makes using these fonts very painful and discourages users. My
fonts being keyboard default driver based can come on all versions of windows
present and future. This prospect has already made my fonts popular in users.
Grammatim suggests to use insert font from word. This works so long as you
are working in word. If you want to work in photo paint, page maker,
photoshop and such different programmes these fonts do not work. With my
fonts user can work freely in all the programmes workable on windows and so
they have an advantage above those fonts. I thing it is immaterial whether a
font is ascii based or unicode based so long as it works on the machine
properly. Insistance for unicode fonts have in some cases caused problems
with keyboards. Not all keyboards respond well for them but all makes of
keyboards do respond for ASCII based fonts very well. I mean let us be a
little more practical in solving this problem of having relieble devnagri
fonts on windows. Hope this explains my stand on the issue.

 

[Beth Melton]

I honestly don't know the answer to that question. You might try this link:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/suggestions.aspx?Sitename=5&Type=2

It has a "Products" suggestions. I'm not sure what happens to those either
but I do know they at least go to Microsoft.

Best of luck in your venture!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton

What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

 

[grammatim]

Grammatim suggests to use insert font from word.

NO. That was to prove to you that you can use Unicode-encoded
characters in an ordinary (English-language) document.

(Insert SYMBOL. not "insert font," whatever that would be.)

This works so long as you
are working in word. If you want to work in photo paint, page maker,
photoshop and such different programmes these fonts do not work.

NO. They work in ANY program running in Windows (that was written
after Unicode was implemented in Windows).

With my
fonts user can work freely in all the programmes workable on windows and so
they have an advantage above those fonts. I thing it is immaterial whethera
font is ascii based or unicode based so long as it works on the machine
properly.

That is exactly the attitude that led to the chaos that made Unicode a
necessity by 1990.

Were you using a personal computer in 1985? I was.

Insistance for unicode fonts have in some cases caused problems
with keyboards. Not all keyboards respond well for them but all makes of
keyboards do respond for ASCII based fonts very well.

Maybe in India you have "makes of keyboards" that do not follow
international standards. The "make of keyboard" cannot have anything
to do with the signal sent to your computer by depressing each key!

 

[Ashok Kothare]

Thanks for your suggestion Beth. I find that on that site only suggestions
for improving the microsoft online web site are received and no suggestion
for improving microsoft OS are considered. The list of topics does not
include this topic! It looks as if MS do not expect a suggestion from unknown
people like me to improve working of their OSs in Indian market.
Ashok Kothare

 

[Beth Melton]

I'm sorry, Askok, that's the only place I know to submit suggestions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton

What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

 

[Ashok Kothare]

Friends, I am resuming the dialogue after about seven months. Somebody told
me that transliteration is the answer to the problem of Indian language
inclusion as default font. I have studied the suggestion and come with reply.
that reply is in details and so I have put it on my blog. Please visit my
blog to read it. It is a research paper too lengthy for this box. URL of my
blog
http://kothareashok.blog.co.in
and you may reply to it on this site as well as on the comment box.

 

[grammatim]

Sorry, but I don't see what "Govinda as a sport" or "soya sauce" or
anything in between have to do with Indian typography.