Diacritics font

[birgit kellner]

John Smith wrote:

> On Wed, 24 Nov 1999, Ulrich T. Kragh wrote:
>
> > Dear List-members,
> > I am in need of computer fonts for writing both diacritics as well as
> > Devanaagarii.
> >
> > I am using a PC and have to write in MS Word 97 and MS Access.
> >
> > I have so far been using the Transliteration Vijay diacritics font, but
> > have discovered that it is not fully compatible with MS Word 97, since the
> > spaces between the letters are not recognized as such but as characters,
> > which gives problems with line wrapping, etc.
> >
> > Can you share your experiences with me? Which fonts are the best to use
> > with these PC programs?
>
> I may be biased, since I built them, but I have the impression that the
> CSX+ fonts are probably now the most popular ones to use on a PC. (Over
> half of all downloads of electronic Mahabharata text are done in CSX+
> format.) Since they are legal freeware, you might as well have a look at
> them: go to the URL below (http://bombay...) and follow the link fonts =>
> csx+.
>

It is my understanding however that CSX+-encoded fonts are not particularly
useful for mixed-language documents, that is, documents which contain Sanskrit
and European languages other than English (e.g. German, French, Danish) that
require in themselves diacritical characters. The reason for this is that CSX+
has Sanskrit diacritical characters in places where ordinary TrueType-fonts, on
which amongst other things Windows' keyboard-layout is based, have diacritics for
such languages. If you want to type text in more than one language, these are
points that should perhaps be considered.

I myself have used John Smith's Norman fonts, slightly adapted to my own needs,
for several years, but am now just waiting for the possibilities that a full
implementation of Unicode in Windows 2000 will (hopefully) offer, in order not to
have any hassles with German umlauts anymore ...

--
Birgit Kellner
Institut f. Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde / Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist
Studies
Universitaet Wien / Vienna University