Bitstream charter csx font and Word 97

[Christopher Fynn]

On  2 May 97, James Egge  wrote:

> I have found that not only does Windows 97 fail to handle the
> Bitstream Charter and Utopia CSX fonts, but the same problems
> arise with the Normyn and Nina fonts.  Using Times New Roman
> and substituting in individual characters from one of these
> fonts is a workable but imperfect solution.
> 
> Microsoft's new extended character set (WGL4) adds a few
> characters of use for transliterating Sanskrit: vowels with
> macrons and s with acute accent, but of course it lacks a
> number of characters.  WGL4 is also not compatible with some
> printers.
> 
> On a more general note is it not depressing that upgrades to
> software often seem to create as many problems as they solve?
> 
> Yes.  It's also depressing that Microsoft wouldn't bother to
> insure that their fonts could be used to write words like r.g,
> moks.a, and duh.kha.
> 
> Jim Egge
> University of Chicago
> e-mail: egge at midway.uchicago.edu

Actually Windows 97 contains much better support for Unicode
than Windows 95 and - when applications are available to 
take advantage of it - you should be able to easily generate *all*
the diacritics necessary for transliterating Indian scripts
as well as those scripts themselves in Windows 97.

Windows 97 supports all the Unicode character pages 
not just the WGL4 sub set that was intoduced with Win 95.

As for fonts not working - many font development tools 
generate poor quality TrueType fonts or fonts with 
missing table information. Some of these tables were not
required by Windows 3.1x or Windows '95 (although they 
have been in the spec for years).
 
Windows 97 requires some of these additional tables and
if fonts have been made without them they may not work.

Word 97 does contain Unicode support. 

Microsoft seem to be developing add on language packs for most
Unicode scripts and languages which will be available for 
Windows 97 & NT 5. AFAIK these language-packs should contain
fonts for the appropriate script(s) and a keyboard driver and 
it it will be possible to switch bettween installed IME's / keyboard 
layouts /scripts/ fonts on the fly.

To make Microsoft aware of the demand for an add-on language
pack and fonts to handle the diacritics used in
transliterating Indic scripts it might be a good idea for as
many institutions and individuals as possible to  contact
"Nadine Kano" <nadinek at microsoft.com> and "F. Avery Bishop"
<averyb at microsoft.com> of Microsoft's Globalization group.

I have also found David Meltzer <davidm at microsoft.com>
of their Typography group to be very helpful regarding 
difficulties with fonts etc..

- Chris
cfynn at dircon.co.uk