Mapping more than one Unicode character to one glyph

[mooreprabu]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking for a way to map more than one Unicode characters to one glyph i.e when a particular series of Unicode characters are typed, a single character should be displayed instead of multiple character.

For example:

If U+A892, U+A8C4, U+A8B0 are come in a row, instead of displaying three characters, only one character should be displayed. I checked few fonts, they have created the character like this but I could not find the way to create this.

I have a character(ksha) in Saurashtra language similar to the variants shapes description example given in the http://www.unicode.org/standard/where/
In saurashtra language we cannot modify the three character(U+A892[SAURASHTRA LETTER KA], U+A8C4[SAURASHTRA SIGN VIRAMA], U+A8B0[SAURASHTRA LETTER SSA]) to create the single character. The character shape is independent of these three characters.

I have Font Creator Home Edition v6.1

I read few forums in the discussion section, I could not find it. Any idea would be helpful.

Thanks in advance

--Prabu M Rengachari

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

What you need is OpenType glyph substitution, which requires the use of a third-party program such as VOLT or the OpenType Compiler referred to in this Tutorial thread on Adding OpenType Features

You can create all of the glyphs in FontCreator, but adding the code to substitute the combined glyph when other characters are typed is not yet supported directly in FontCreator.

For example, in English, we need to combine f+f+i into a single glyph ffi — we can create the ffi in FontCreator, but the glyph substitution must be added afterwards. It is not too difficult to do using the OpenType Compiler.

If you don't understand the tutorial you can ask here, though it is beyond the scope of supporting the use of FontCreator. You will have to work out the details for yourself. I have not used Microsoft's VOLT, as it seems much harder to use, but there is a support forum for VOLT.

[mooreprabu]

I have created the open type font using the tutorial provided in the url you shared and I am able to map more than one Unicode character to one glyph now.

Thanks a lot!

--Prabu M Rengachari