Re: truetype on pango

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Naif AL-Otaibi <naif@flashmail.com> writes:

> hello,
> 
>  We developing arabic language support on linux. How can I run true type
> fonts
>  on pango using X font server truetype-xfstt.
> 
>  I hope you can help me, naif
>  http://www.linux.org.sa

To avoid duplicated effort, here is an answer I provided to this
question earlier. Perhaps people can fill in the gaps in my reply.

                                        Owen

> From: "Naif Al-Otaibi" <naif@flashmail.com>
> Subject: 
> To: hp@redhat.com
> Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 01:17:50 -0700
> Reply-to: naif@flashmail.com
> 
> hello,
> 
> We developing arabic language support on linux. How can I run true type fonts
> on pango using X font server truetype-xfstt. 
> 
> I hope you can help me, naif 
> http://www.linux.org.sa

In order to use a font, it must be encoded in a form that Pango can
understand. The Arabic shaper understands the encodings:

    "iso10646-1",     (Unicode font with Arabic Presentation forms)
    "iso8859-6.8x",   (Langbox fonts)
    "mulearabic-2"    (Arabic fonts from the intlfonts)
    "symbol-0"        (Custom encoding for one Urdu font)

For a TrueType font, using the Unicode encoding is probably
the natural thing to do. How easy this is depends on how the
font you want to use is encoded. 

If the font already has the presentation forms encoded in the
right location, then you probably can just get xfstt to 
export the font to X encoded as iso-10646. If the font is
differently encoded, you would need to remap the font. 
I don't know if you can do this with xfstt, or if you
would need an external tool.

Hope this explaination helps some. Unfortunately, I've never
tried to use a TrueType arabic font myself, so I don't
have direct experience to draw from.

Regards,
                                        Owen