Access to localized forms.

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James Puckett
James Puckett Posts: 2,019
in Font Technology
How does software access the localized glyphs in apps that don’t list the languages in the localization menus? Do apps default to the language set in the operating system? For example, Sami languages aren’t available in the Indesign language menu. Does that mean someone typesetting Sami can’t access alternate forms unless they’re in a stylistic set?

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  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,031
    I believe so.

    Or you might fool InDesign by doing something wacky like installing a dummy dictionary for Sami, perhaps? It wouldn't need to have any real content, just the metadata and be "a dictionary."
  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 796
    There are several ways. At the most basic, InDesign has a "Glyphs" palette that lists everything in the font, and you just pick the glyph you want; the next level up is to use a custom INX file. (When I asked the attendees of my Granshan talk a few years back who could do this, only a couple of hands went up. And these are the people who really ought to know...) And then if you are really doing this sort of thing on a regular basis, the level above that is to use software which actually does support minority languages...
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,444
    Does adding a Hunspell dictionary for a language in InDesign trigger localised form support for that language?
  • James Puckett
    James Puckett Posts: 2,019
    I’ve done the custom INX file; IIRC it was what I did to get Kannada working. I’m just wondering how likely it is that anybody would know how to access localized forms of Eng as mentioned in that other thread.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,031
    John Hudson said:
    Does adding a Hunspell dictionary for a language in InDesign trigger localised form support for that language?
    Effectively, yes. Well, it allows you to format the text as being "in that language" which triggers said support.

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