Finding the non-unicode characters subset in an unicode font

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Rob18
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2014 10:29 am

Finding the non-unicode characters subset in an unicode font

Post by Rob18 »

I need to customize the Courier New Bold (courbd.tff) Windows font.

It's a font with 3248 glyphs, that I use in an application that does not support unicode. This app sees this font has a one byte char* font, with only 256 characters, ranging from 0x00 to 0xFF.

I need to know which ones are mapped to this subset.

The first ones, from 0x00 to 0x7e are obvious. But the Codepoints jump them directly to 0xA1.

From 0xA1 to 0xFF, and from 0xA1 to 0xFF, FontCreator shows the same characters as my app.

So, I'm missing 0x7F to 0xA0.

0x80 for example is displayed by my app as the Euro € symbol, but I don't see it in the font (although I could easily miss it looking in 3248 glyphs).

I'd like to understand the way this font works, and how 0x7f to 0xA0 are mapped, thanks for any help.
Rob18
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2014 10:29 am

Re: Finding the non-unicode characters subset in an unicode

Post by Rob18 »

Some more info about my problem:

By viewing the font with Fontlab (which I globally do not like at all), I found out that it shows the glyphs in the order I'm looking for, the first 256 shown being mapped from 0x00 to 0xFF in a non unicode application.

For example, the Euro 0x80 symbol is mapped with $20AC in this font.

That almost solves my problem, except that some of these 0x00-0FF characters are not mapped at all. Fontlab shows them as empty, and does not allow to modify them. 0x81 is empty for example.

I tried, both with Fonlab and HL FontCreator to create a new $81 glyph, but that does not work, it does not get assigned to the 0x81 position.

Any idea?
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Finding the non-unicode characters subset in an unicode

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Using an application that is so outdated is asking for trouble...

Modern software and fonts work with Unicode codepoints. You will need to know the codepage which is used by that software in order to understand what characters can be used. Even then it will be a lot of struggle to make things work. Also be sure you are allowed to modify the font, so contact the font vendor first.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
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