A font is a set of printable or displayable text characters in a specific style and size.
Types of Fonts
Here I’ll be talking about Unicode Fonts. So, the other type is Non-Unicode. Simple.
Unicode
Fonts contain a wide range of characters, letters, digits, etc., mapped
into the standard Universal Character Set, derived from many different
languages and scripts from around the world.
Non-Unicode Fonts are specific to a particular language or legacy character set.
Why Conversion of Text written with Non-Unicode Font to Unicode ?
The first answer is choice. And, the cause of choice is their standard.
Actually,
I had many devanAgarI texts written with Non-Unicode fonts. I started
using Unicode fonts and keyboard supporting them. I was unable to edit
old texts with Unicode supporting keyboard. I had to switch between
different fonts now and then. Even after this exercise what I got was
looking bad. Using different fonts in a single word can’t make you happy
with it’s looks. I’d to choose one of them. I chose Unicode-fonts.
So, Why You Used Non-Unicodes Ever ?
Because Unicode-fonts were unavailable. Or, because I did not know. Or,…ohhh…..many causes. Listen my story :-
A
few years back I was not much familiar with computing and
sanskrit-hindi-typing. I used to write sanskrit-texts in roman script. I
used “I-TRANS-encoding” for it. (Its a transliteration scheme.) Then the encoded text was converted to devanAgarI script by I-translator. It was a two-step procedure.
At that time I-translator was using font “Sanskrit-99” . So, I had too many Sanskrit-texts written with that font. Its necessary to mention here that it was not an Unicode-font as “Sanskrit 2003” or “Mangal” etc.
So What You Did ?
I searched to get any software able to make my all Non-Unicoded texts Unicoded.
What were your ideas?
First
transliterate my texts to I-trans encoding and then to Unicoded text
with the help of I-translator. But, I couldn’t do that.
Why?
There was no software to convert Non-Unicoded text to I-trans scheme. The new I-translator was supporting conversion of Unicoded devanAgarI text to I-tran scheme. But my texts were not in Unicode-font.
What’s The Solution ?
I went for other search.
This time I found a Google-Group dealing with this problem. It provided a HTML-page to convert font of text from “Sanskrit99” to “Sanskrit 2003”.
I downloaded the page, and tried to convert my texts. And wow….my texts were Unicoded.
I
checked my text thoroughly and found some less-used ligatures still
Non-Unicoded. So, I edited that HTML page as per my uses and needs. And
now, it was working superb.
Thanks to THAT GOOGLE GROUP. It has many other tools also. One should have a look.
Due to change in policies of Google Groups, all fonts, convertors and other files are stored on Google Sites by Group Moderators.
श्रीमल्ललितालालितः॥
॥