I think Fonts grouped by script will be more usefull and approperiate.
N.R.Liwal
Asiatype
www.liwal.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Jenkins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 6:40 AM
Subject: Re: Single Unicode Font
>
> On Monday, May 21, 2001, at 03:38 PM, Tom Gewecke wrote:
>
> > On 04/18/2001 09:49:40 AM John Jenkins wrote:
> >
> >> At the same time, none of the people involved in defining TrueType --
> >> Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft -- believe that it is really a good idea to
> >> have a single font covering all of Unicode. Microsoft provides one
> >> because there has been a strong push from people demanding it, but it
> >> still isn't a good idea.
> >
> > I'm curious what the disadvantages of such a font are, other than
> > size. It
> > seems like it would be rather useful in any setting where one might
> > want to
> > be able to read or use a large variety of languages with minimal admin
> > effort, for example in a university or other public facility open to
> > people
> > of varied backgrounds and language needs.
>
> There are two main objections.
>
> One is simply size. Having a pan-Unicode font takes up a great deal of
> system resources, and for most users there's no real benefit. (Just
> think of all those ideographs on the system of someone who speaks
> English only.) Depending on the system, it may actually be worse to
> have a single font that covers everything (and is always being used)
> than to have a number of smaller fonts (most of which go unused most of
> the time).
>
> Single monolithic fonts are also inherently more difficult to produce,
> because existing type design tools don't handle collections of tens of
> thousands of glyphs as readily as they do a couple of hundred glyphs.
> Even existing tools for CJK aren't really designed for something as big
> as a single pan-Unicode font. The QA and development work involved in a
> single really big font file is probably more than the QA and development
> work on a suite of smaller fonts.
>
> Secondly, there are esthetic objections to the idea that a single type
> design can encompass all of the varied scripts of Unicode. Most people
> would probably balk at that as an objection, but it is a big deal for
> type designers.
>
> Mind, I personally like having pan-Unicode fonts and realize that other
> people like or need them, too. But it really is silly IMHO to ask for
> them to be a standard part of an installed system.
>
> =====
> John H. Jenkins
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://homepage.mac.com/jenkins/
>
