font-face support for foreign character sets...

[Arby Trary]

Hello,

I'm working on a website that is being translated into several languages.
Before I work on a new language, I enable support for that particular
character set in Internet Explorer. A few translators, who are working in
foreign languages have sent me, along with their translation, the TTF font
for their particular character set (ie Hindi, Chinese, etc), and I have
installed those fonts in my windows system.

My question is this - If I design a web page, say in the Hindi language,
using the "Kruti Dev 021" font (as font-face tag in HTML), will Hindi
readers all over the world be able to read and recogise this font? I mean,
just because I happen to have the "Kruti Dev" font installed in my windows
system, I can see the Hindi character set portrayed (in Dreamweaver and
IE6), but does that mean that all Hindi readers wherever they are would have
to have the same font support in their systems to be able to correctly
render the web-page?

Perhaps a more relevant question would be, where would I find out the
"system default fonts" for for foreign character sets, so that if I got a
web-page translated into, say, Taiwanese, that the font-style references in
my webpages would be recognised by all Taiwanese computer users world-wide?
Or how about this: for people in Taiwan using Windows / Internet Explorer
platforms, what is the DEFAULT font support installed by windows in their
systems in order for them to read Taiwanese characters? If I knew the
Default system fonts for all of these languages, then I would have a basis
to work from.

"If you're not confused at this point, it means you're not comprehending the
situation..." !!

thanks for any pointers...

Arby

 

[Steve Pugh]

I'm working on a website that is being translated into several languages.
Before I work on a new language, I enable support for that particular
character set in Internet Explorer. A few translators, who are working in
foreign languages have sent me, along with their translation, the TTF font
for their particular character set (ie Hindi, Chinese, etc), and I have
installed those fonts in my windows system.

The most important thing you need to do is understand how fonts are
totally irrelevant and that it's the character encoding that you need
to ensure is correct. Configure the server to send out correct
character encoding information and you'll be most of the way there.

My question is this - If I design a web page, say in the Hindi language,
using the "Kruti Dev 021" font (as font-face tag in HTML),

There is no font-face tag in HTML. Do you mean <font face=""> ? which
you really shouldn't be using, or do you mean the CSS font-family
property? In either case the page should work when no font is
specified, then you can suggest one or more fonts that give the
particular aesthetic effect you're after.

will Hindi
readers all over the world be able to read and recogise this font?

They will surely have one or more fonts available that cover the
character encoding(s) that Hindi uses.

I mean,
just because I happen to have the "Kruti Dev" font installed in my windows
system, I can see the Hindi character set portrayed (in Dreamweaver and
IE6), but does that mean that all Hindi readers wherever they are would have
to have the same font support in their systems to be able to correctly
render the web-page?

No. Just like you don't need Verdana installed to read text in the
latin alphabet where the author has suggested that Verdana be used.
The correct characters will still be displayed just not in Verdana.

Perhaps a more relevant question would be, where would I find out the
"system default fonts" for for foreign character sets, so that if I got a
web-page translated into, say, Taiwanese, that the font-style references in
my webpages would be recognised by all Taiwanese computer users world-wide?
Or how about this: for people in Taiwan using Windows / Internet Explorer
platforms, what is the DEFAULT font support installed by windows in their
systems in order for them to read Taiwanese characters? If I knew the
Default system fonts for all of these languages, then I would have a basis
to work from.

If you're already working with translators who know the language and
regions in question they might be able to give you a list of four or
five typical fonts that are widely installed. Then you can choose
which ones you like the look of. The problem being that if you have no
experience with the alphabets in question you have no way to tell
which fonts meet your particular design needs (e.g. does a particular
font look 'modern and stylish' for readers of that alphabet?)

Steve

 

[Arby Trary]

Thanks Steve.

I guess the font face stylings (whether css or tags) will not affect that
actual "text" that appears, and the (hindi-speaking) person's browser will
automatically reset to default font if my chosen style is not one of their
system fonts. Just that the Hindi (and I assmue other) char set's have
strange representation in code view (example: &szlig;eq&gt;s viuh ft+anxh
esa ftu phtksa dh vko';drk gS] mUgsa Lohdkj djuk gksxkA ;fn eq&gt;s 'kkafr
pkfg,] rks ;g Lohdkj djuk gksxkA eq&gt;s vius vki ls fcYdqy lkQ 'kCnksa esa
;g dguk gksxk]&szlig;gk&iexcl;] eSa 'kkafr dh I;kl egslwl dj ldrk
gw&iexcl;A&THORN etc.

Makes me feel like my hovercraft is full of eels.
(if you know what I mean...)

Arby

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Thanks Steve.

Huh? Please learn how to work with the Usenet community. Hints:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
Also please check the spelling of your name, it looks a bit odd.

I guess the font face stylings (whether css or tags) will not affect
that actual "text" that appears, and the (hindi-speaking) person's
browser will automatically reset to default font if my chosen style is
not one of their system fonts. Just that the Hindi (and I assmue
other) char set's have strange representation in code view (example:
&szlig;eq&gt;s viuh ft+anxh esa ftu phtksa dh vko';drk gS] mUgsa Lohdkj
djuk gksxkA ;fn eq&gt;s 'kkafr pkfg,] rks ;g Lohdkj djuk gksxkA eq&gt;s
vius vki ls fcYdqy lkQ 'kCnksa esa ;g dguk gksxk]&szlig;gk&iexcl;] eSa
'kkafr dh I;kl egslwl dj ldrk gw&iexcl;A&THORN etc.

Such babbling might be entertaining at times, but if you really want some
help, start with posting a URL.

The odds are that you haven't understood the fundamental concept of
character encoding. The URL would more or less make this certain, and then
we might know where to start from.

 

[Arby Trary]

"Arby Trary" <[email protected]> wrote:

Huh? Please learn how to work with the Usenet community. Hints:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
Also please check the spelling of your name, it looks a bit odd.

Such babbling might be entertaining at times, but if you really want some
help, start with posting a URL.

Obviously Greek to you, Roman to me. Steve gave me an intelligent answer,
which is rare to find amongst all the Hot Air released in the auspices of
"helpful" feedback. I simply quoted some of the difficult-to-comprehend
encoding associated with Hindi characters. If I broke one of your
"church-lady" rulings as to Usenet Etiquette, perhaps you need to adjust the
two-by-four lodged in your descending colon.

And if "correcting" peoples "screen-names" is another favorite hobby,
perhaps YOUR concept of "entertainment" needs a little re-thinking, no? A
little too much time on your hands?

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Obviously Greek to you, Roman to me.

You need to write URLs in Roman (Latin) characters, you know, these days.
Sad, but true.

Steve gave me an intelligent answer,

Probably, but your response showed no sign of understanding any of it.

Thanks for playing. Please do not correct your forged From field until you
have a clue. Thank you in advance.

 

[Steve Pugh]

Just that the Hindi (and I assmue other) char set's have
strange representation in code view

No, they should appear as Hindi if you have entered them as Hindi and
if your editor is capable of displaying Hindi.

(example: &szlig;

&szlig; is the sz ligature. I'm fairly certain that no such character
is used in Hindi. So you're probably doing something wrong.

Post a URL.

Steve