To some extent, my problem has been finally solved, though in a bizarre manner.
On a computer running Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition 4.10.2222 A and using Internet Explorer Version 5.50.4522.1800 without support for any extra language added (i.e., with the standard settings that these things ship with), the following steps were carried out: 1. Control Panel -> Fonts was checked and was found to possess Arial Unicode MS. 2. The web page: http://www.unicode.org/unicode/standard/translations/hindi.html was opened using the browser and the following two errors were observed in the display: a. Explicit halant shown everywhere, instead of showing the combined form of the consonants. b. One vowel sign (maatraa) placed incorrectly (after the consonant, instead of before). 3. To ensure that the problem was not due to having an older version of Arial Unicode MS, the font was deleted from the Fonts folder and a fresh copy was downloaded and installed from http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/aruniupd.aspx 4. The Unicode Hindi page was opened again. No improvement. 5. Following suggestions from this list, a Unicode Hindi-specific font (Mangal) was obtained (from private sources) and installed in Control Panel -> Fonts. 6. The Unicode Hindi web page was opened again. This time the title, paragraph headings, and the centered text on the top of the page was rendered perfectly using Mangal. All the rest of the Hindi text was rendered using Arial Unicode MS, with the same errors as before (2a and 2b). 7. Since it was clear now that Arial Unicode MS was causing the problems, it was deleted from the Fonts folder. 8. The Unicode Hindi web page was now perfectly rendered, completely in Mangal (for the Hindi part). This exercise suggests the following: a. Arial Unicode MS does not support complex scripts unless the OS itself supports them. b. Mangal supports the complex script Devanagari regardless of the OS. c. When both Mangal and Arial Unicode MS are present, IE 5.5 gets confused and uses a mixture of both of them to display Hindi Unicode. The version of Uniscribe and the addition/presence of language packs for scripts like Thai or Arabic does not seem to affect the display of Unicode Hindi on Win 98 SE. Is Microsoft doing anything to improve their publically distributed version of Arial Unicode MS? The UTC should press them to do so. Also, does anyone know if the Mangal font is available in the public domain? Microsoft should be asked by the UTC to have Mangal included with all future versions of Internet Explorer, by default, or something to that effect. Regards, Dinesh Agarwal _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
