Strange problem with some of my fonts, yet not with others

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William
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Strange problem with some of my fonts, yet not with others

Post by William »

As some readers may know, I produce what I call typecase_ pdfs. They are intended to assist people using various languages in applications which do not have an Insert Symbol facility (for example, WordPad).

Please consider the following typecase_ pdfs, two of which have been available from links in other forum posts for some time and one for Latvian which I produced this morning.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/t ... eranto.pdf

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/t ... acters.pdf

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/t ... atvian.pdf

Each of them was produced using Serif PagePlus X2 and my Quest text font version 2.21 which is the version available on the web at this time.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/QUESTTXT.TTF

Recently I have uploaded version 0.24 of my Poetry font.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/POETRY.TTF

Also on the web is my Chronicle Text font, at present version 0.26.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/CHRONTXT.TTF

----

Here is the problem.

If I copy and paste from the pdf to WordPad and then format using various fonts in turn, some combinations of pdf and font work and some do not.

For example, copying and pasting from the pdf to WordPad, works for Esperanto for Quest text and for Poetry and for Chronicle Text.

For example, copying and pasting from the pdf to WordPad, works for Welsh for Quest text and for Poetry and for Chronicle Text.

However, copying and pasting from the pdf to WordPad, does not work for Latvian for Quest text nor for Poetry but does work for Chronicle Text. It also works for my Galileo Lettering font.

I am thinking that I may have made some error in producing some of the fonts and wonder if someone is able to work out what it is please?

William Overington

8 September 2008
William
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Re: Strange problem with some of my fonts, yet not with othe

Post by William »

William wrote:However, copying and pasting from the pdf to WordPad, does not work for Latvian for Quest text nor for Poetry but does work for Chronicle Text. It also works for my Galileo Lettering font.
I had a look at various fonts and found that those that work have the second checkbox checked in Format Settings... Ranges Code Page Character Ranges Edit... Latin 2: Eastern Europe (1250) whereas those that do not work do not hve that checkbox checked.

I made ZZ versions of various of the fonts. For example PoetryZZ in POETRYZZ.TTF which differed from POETRY in POETRY.TTF only by that one checkbox being checked and it worked as desired.

It seems as if WordPad uses the state of the checkbox to decide whether the font can support those characters. It looks like FontCreator needs more than a few from a code page in order to check the checkbox for that code page when someone uses the Calculate facility.

Is that correct please?

William Overington

8 September 2008
William
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Post by William »

This is becoming quite a curious phenomenon!

The checkbox for Latin 2: Eastern Europe (1250) was the one that I checked in order to get the font to work in the particular test, yet looking up the code tables shows that Windows Baltic (1257) is the code page with the Latvian characters and that flag was not checked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows-1250

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows-1257

So, two questions arise please.

1. On what basis does FontCreator decide to check a code page checkbox?

2. Does it do any harm to check the checkboxes manually?

William Overington

8 September 2008
William
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Post by William »

I adapted a copy of the source file of the typecase for Esperanto to produce one for Maltese and then I produced a pdf.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/t ... altese.pdf

I copied from the pdf and pasted to WordPad and then I tried formatting all of the characters using the Poetry version 0.24 font. The Z dot and the z dot characters were not displayed using the Poetry font, though the other six characters were displayed using the Poetry font.

When I tried formatting using the PoetryZZ font, all eight characters were displayed using the PoetryZZ font.

I am thinking of updating my published fonts by manually setting the flags for code pages Latin 2: Eastern Europe (1250) and Windows Baltic (1257) as well as for code page Latin 1 (1252) so that the typecase_ pdfs are usable with my fonts using WordPad.

I have tried using the Latvian and Maltese typecase_ pdfs with the existing published versions of the fonts using both Serif PagePlus X2 and Microsoft Word 97 and they work fine.

William Overington

9 September 2008
Erwin Denissen
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Post by Erwin Denissen »

William wrote:1. On what basis does FontCreator decide to check a code page checkbox?
It should include a code page when at least one glyph is mapped to the code page. But for some reason it doesn't work that way... I'll look into this issue, and for now move this post to the Bug forum.
William wrote:2. Does it do any harm to check the checkboxes manually?
No, for now that's the best thing to do.
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Post by William »

Thank you for your reply.
Erwin Denissen wrote:
William wrote:2. Does it do any harm to check the checkboxes manually?
No, for now that's the best thing to do.
I have now updated the Poetry font to version 0.241 which differs from version 0.24 in that the flags for code pages Latin 2: Eastern Europe (1250) and Windows Baltic (1257) are set.

The flag for code page Latin 1 (1252) was set in version 0.24 and remains set in version 0.241.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/POETRY.TTF

I have renamed the file containing version 0.24 to become POETRY0240.TTF and it is now available on the web as follows.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/POETRY0240.TTF

I am hoping gradually to update those of my other fonts which need updating.

William Overington

9 September 2008
Erwin Denissen
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Re:

Post by Erwin Denissen »

William wrote:I have now updated the Poetry font to version 0.241 which differs from version 0.24 in that the flags for code pages Latin 2: Eastern Europe (1250) and Windows Baltic (1257) are set.
Is it still necessary to include Latin 2: Eastern Europe (1250), or does it also work without that code page range?
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Post by William »

Erwin Denissen wrote: Is it still necessary to include Latin 2: Eastern Europe (1250), or does it also work without that code page range?
If I make a font named, say Poetry Z7 in POETRYZ7.TTF, by making a Save As... copy of Poetry version 0.241 and then I uncheck the 1250 code page flag and then Save, is that the font needed for the tests?

Which tests would you like me to carry out please?

William Overington

10 December 2008
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Strange problem with some of my fonts, yet not with others

Post by Erwin Denissen »

In your first post you mentioned:
However, copying and pasting from the pdf to WordPad, does not work for Latvian for Quest text nor for Poetry but does work for Chronicle Text. It also works for my Galileo Lettering font.
I wonder if you're able to copy and paste text if you only check the following flags in the Poetry font:
Latin 1 (1252)
Turkish (1254)
Windows Baltic (1257)
MS-DOS Baltic (775)

The reason I ask this, is because I believe the font doesn't contain Latin 2 (1250) characters, so it should affect any other characters or copy and paste operations. If it does, then I'll have to look into this issue some more :wink:
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William
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Re: Strange problem with some of my fonts, yet not with others

Post by William »

Here is a transcript of my tests.

----

Wednesday 10 December 2008

12:07 pm

Thread viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2374

Post viewtopic.php?p=10475#p10475

Open POETRY.TTF Poetry version 0.241 9 September 2008, which is the current latest version, in FontCreator 5.6.

Save As... POETRYCP.TTF.

Tools AutoNaming... as Poetry Code Page Tests version 0.241 10 December 2008.

Using Format Settings... Ranges make the code page flags set as follows, with no other code page flags set.

Latin 1 (1252)
Turkish (1254)
Windows Baltic (1257)
MS-DOS Baltic (775)

Validate the font.

Install the font.

Here are the original tests, with Poetry 0.24, at the start of the thread.

quote

If I copy and paste from the pdf to WordPad and then format using various fonts in turn, some combinations of pdf and font work and some do not.

For example, copying and pasting from the pdf to WordPad, works for Esperanto for Quest text and for Poetry and for Chronicle Text.

For example, copying and pasting from the pdf to WordPad, works for Welsh for Quest text and for Poetry and for Chronicle Text.

However, copying and pasting from the pdf to WordPad, does not work for Latvian for Quest text nor for Poetry but does work for Chronicle Text. It also works for my Galileo Lettering font.

end quote

Try the same tests with the Poetry Code Page Tests font.

Esperanto, it works.

Welsh, it works.

Latvian, it does not work.

Maltese has a mixed result, for the line Ċ Ġ Ħ Ż ċ ġ ħ ż it works for Ċ Ġ Ħ ċ ġ and ħ but not for Ż and ż.

----

> ... I believe the font doesn't contain Latin 2 (1250) characters, ...

I think, from looking at the code page charts from the links in an earlier post in this thread, (though that needs a provenance check) that S caron, s caron, Z caron and z caron are in the 1250 code page, though not solely in the 1250 code page as they appear to be in the 1257 code page as well. (They might be in zero, one or more other code pages, I do not know).

12:40 pm.

----

Here is the font, as an attachment.
POETRYCP.TTF
Poetry Code Page Tests font
(55.69 KiB) Downloaded 447 times
William Overington

10 December 2008
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Strange problem with some of my fonts, yet not with others

Post by Erwin Denissen »

The algorithm I intend to use will only include a specific code page if at least 14% of those characters are included. Basic Latin characters are not ignored as they are included in many code pages. If a single character would already allow a code page to be included, then your Poetry font would include the following code pages:
Latin 1 (1252) [always included to prevent known display issues]
Latin 2: Eastern Europe (1250) [4]
Turkish (1254) [1 -> $0131 dotlessi]
Arabic (1256) [2]
Windows Baltic (1257) [24]
Chinese: Simplified chars -- PRC and Singapore (936) [5]
Korean Wansung (949) [3]
Macintosh Character Set (US Roman) [3]
IBM Turkish (857) [1]
Latin 2 (852) [4]
MS-DOS Baltic (775) [24]
WE/Latin 1 (850) [1]

Above, between brackets you'll find the number of matching characters.

The character(s) that match with
Turkish (1254)
$0131 dotlessi

Korean Wansung (949)
$0126 Hbar
$0127 hbar
$0131 dotlessi

etc.
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Re: Strange problem with some of my fonts, yet not with others

Post by Erwin Denissen »

I forgot to mention one other very important factor: To include a code pages at least 60 characters must match with the given font. So it's 14% of the characters of the code page with a minimum of 60. The 14% and the 60 are now fixed, but I might change those values, or even the whole algorithm if there is a need to do so.
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