Beginner question about unicode
I'm working on my debut font. Just about to finish standard latin glyph. And I'm thinking to expand it to multilingual. The problem is, I don't understand what glyph/unicode to design in order for my font to support multilingual.
I tried to observe other fonts about multilingual support, and it turns out not every the unicode in latin extended A, B etc. is assigned with some design. In other words, there is some blank unicode in latin extended A, B, etc. So it doesn't help me understand which unicode range shall I design to support multilingual.
Can anybody explain me the unicode range to design in order for my fonts to support multilinguals? Or maybe is there some concept/keywords shall I learn so I can understand about multilingual support?
Thankss..
I tried to observe other fonts about multilingual support, and it turns out not every the unicode in latin extended A, B etc. is assigned with some design. In other words, there is some blank unicode in latin extended A, B, etc. So it doesn't help me understand which unicode range shall I design to support multilingual.
Can anybody explain me the unicode range to design in order for my fonts to support multilinguals? Or maybe is there some concept/keywords shall I learn so I can understand about multilingual support?
Thankss..
0
Comments
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Wanting your font to have "multilingual" support is a bit vague. Do you mean the common Latin based European languages? If so covering the unicode blocks Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement and Latin Extended-A will add support for a lot of languages.
I recommend using Alphabet Type's Charset Builder to create your character set, it's a fantastic tool.
http://www.alphabet-type.com/tools/charset-builder/
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You might also find this conversation interesting:
http://typedrawers.com/discussion/1388/what-character-set-do-you-usually-reach-for-as-a-default-when-you-start-a-new-font/p1
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The Letter Database is a useful resource for researching which characters are need to support which languages.2
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The blank spots in the Unicode charts are merely space for future additions, if any.
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Anyway, there is only very little overlap between Unicode ranges and actual language support. "New glyphs" may get added to the block in which one would expect only if there is enough empty space left.
And then even not always; the Unicode cons. may be planning ahead and consider that if adding support for a glyph x, it could be expected to have to add x+1, x+2 etc. in short order. In such a case, they'd better off choosing a block with plenty of room for future expansion.
Don't bother too much about actual Unicode values (blocks, ranges, or whatever). Look up what characters you need, and only then look up their Unicode values.
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Worth exploring are:1. FiraGO 1.000 that supports multilinguals including Arabic.2. the attached QB-English.pdfHappy downloading and exploring.0
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woww.... thanks so much guys for helping me with this problem, especially for the references, resources and keywords. That's a lot of resources, a lot to learn, a long way to go. And thanks again to you guys for telling me where to start it from...
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This chapter might also be helpful for getting a handle on the basics of Unicode: https://simoncozens.github.io/fonts-and-layout/unicode.html2
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Unicode may seem a little daunting if you haven't dealt with it before, but it's way easier than the pre-Unicode days, when you had to ship different versions of your fonts with different encodings to support different languages—and for different platforms.3
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Examine the free Bold style of Toxigenesis in your font editor. I'm not saying you should make your set exactly the same but I want to show you my bare minimum set. This is the repertoire I use for display typefaces which don't require historical characters and aren't intended for scholarly use like language studies, history books. I include Greek and Cyrillic in all my new fonts but you mentioned Latin so...
Latin Extended A
The missing glyphs with circumflexes are for Esperanto. So research Esperanto and make your own decision. 0138 and 0149 are historical. The Ldots are deprecated and shouldn't be included. Do some research on Ubreve and decide for yourself.Latin Extended B
If you want to support more African languages for a display typeface, you'll have to do research to figure out what's in use, historical, what's mainly used for textbooks. I've never found a guide explaining this clearly. Oops just noticed I missed the flipped E at 018E. I think you should always include Vietnamese but if you don't want to, you can skip the hooked O and U.IPA Extensions
Combining Diacritical marks
Latin Extended Additional
I don't recommend skipping the Vietnamese characters but if you decide to, keep the dotted vowels as other languages require them. Don't forget 1E9E...I usually don't miss that one. You need that for sure.Currency Symbols
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Mark Simonson said:Unicode may seem a little daunting if you haven't dealt with it before, but it's way easier than the pre-Unicode days, when you had to ship different versions of your fonts with different encodings to support different languages—and for different platforms.0
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