Re: [Render] OpenType support in Pango

[Mark Leisher <mleisher crl nmsu edu>]

    >>  A good question.  On one hand, if you place the letters of a word
    >> using simple arithmetic, the set of glyphs needed are much smaller, but
    >> each glyph has to be drawn individually.
    >> 
    >> On the other hand, if you create separate glyphs for all the possible
    >> positions one letter shape can take

    Brian> Hum, I assumed that the vertical position depended on the number of
    Brian> proceeding characters in the current word.  Does this explain the
    Brian> following?

    >> , you end up with a font like Monotype Nastaliq - so large it takes 80+
    >> TrueType fonts to hold all the glyphs.

Yes, the vertical position does depend on where the letter is in the word.
With a minimal set of glyphs and some laxness in glyph shapes, one can
probably get by with a minimal set of glyphs.  But like most high-end
typesetting, you want all the positional variants to get a perfect match.
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Mark Leisher
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