Re: About Unicode and other font mysteries (for Mac)

["Dmitry Yunov" <yudmi@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Despot" <despot@bluewin.ch>
To: <framers@omsys.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2001 5:07 PM
Subject: About Unicode and other font mysteries (for Mac)


> The last days' crossfire on the list convinced me that we have here the
real
> gurus for all Unicode issues. My questions are so basic that I hardly dare
> post them.
>
> We are working with FM6/MacOS 9, 9.1 (Fv)
>
> I often get Word 8 files with Cyrillic or Central European text, which I
> could not read until I installed MacOS 9.1 with specific CY and CE fonts.
>
> I noticed, though, that the same files were readable on any recent Windows
> OS, and without having to change the font (for ex., Times NewRoman
appeared
> also in Cyrillic if needed). The same font (Times NewRoman) on MacOS 9
shows
> blank spaces, underlines, and so on. On MacOS 9.1, you need to apply a
> cyrillic font to see characters correctly.
>
> Question Nr. 1
> ==============
> Are the Windows standard fonts Unicode-encoded? Are  special keyboard
> layouts required to use them on a PC?
Yes, starting from the WinNT 3.1 (1993) and Win95 PanEuro (1995) all
TrueType fonts in Windows are Unicode-based.
Not all MS Windows TrueType fonts have support of Cyrillic, Greek, CE or
Baltic codepages' charactres (this multiply of characters calls WGL4) even
if they do based on Unicode.
Times New Roman, Courier New, Arial, Arial Unicode, Arial Narrow, Tahoma,
Verdana, MS Comuc Sans, Geordia  and some other standard MS Office Value
Pack TT fonts have that support.
It's signify you can see and print Unicode text with these fonts in same
languages; for edit or input text in these languages you'll need to add
stanadard national keyboard drivers via Contrila Panel=>Regional
Setting=>Input in ANY language version of Windows. For example you can use
Cyrillic or Greek standard MS keyboard drivers in French or Spanish version
of Windows and vice versa.
However you can found a lot of problem in the use of it for third-party
applications the best sample is MOST Adobes'.
There is the main topic of Frame Unicode discuss you're referenced.
Used CoolType engine Adobe applications are Unicode-aware and MS Windows
Unicode keyboard input uncompatible in most situations yet.
Why? Ask it Lee R. I don't understand it for a long time.
>
> Question Nr. 2
> ==============
> On MacOS 9.1, the keyboard layouts used for CE and Cyrillic have nothing
to
> do with a QWERTY keyboard (ex. Ukrainian, Russian, Czech...). Is there a
way
> to customise them?
Yes, let find Keyboard layout edit utilites in Version tracker i.e.
(www.versiontracker.com).
http://www.versiontracker.com/mp/new_search.m?order_d=N&mode=Advanced&produc
tDB=Macintosh&beginNonDefault=&endNonDefault=&search=keyboard&exact=all&B1=S
earch&search_ProgName=on&search_ShortDescrip=on&search_dates=All&search_begi
n=&search_end=&order=ProgName&OS_Filter=MacOS

>
> Question Nr. 3
> ==============
> When importing such a file (which contains Cyrillic and Latin characters
> along, for ex.) into FrameMaker, you get a sort of an encrypted text. Is
> there a filter, or converting tip, to reset characters as they appear in a
> standard ASCII font?
MS Word 97-98-2000-2001-XP text enconing is Unicode, FrameMaker's is not.
FrameMaker does not handle any large Unicode fonts like Arial.
It needs virtual font substitutions like Arial Cyr, Arial Greek, Arial CE
etc.
The saving into MSOffice 95 format and a reimport in FM helps in same
situations.

>
> Question Nr. 4
> ==============
> Now I just got a book written in French (Word 01/MacOS9) which also
appears
> "encrypted" as soon as it is exported from MSWord (into FM or XPress).
This
> is quite amazing!
Nothing is quite amazing.
MS Word 97-98-2000-2001-XP text enconing is Unicode, FrameMaker's and
Quark's is not.
> We are working on the same system, with same fonts,
> settings, and the author swears he used a standard Latin kbd layout). The
> only turnaround I found was to let him send the chapters in html e-mail
> messages, and then to copy/paste them into Word files on my own
computer! -
> RTF export  did not work,
> saving in previous MSWord versions neither.
It could work. Is it work if you make copy/paste from/to Clipboard?

Your,
Dmitri.




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