Hello
firts I want to thank High-logic co. for font creator software it is a creat project I found.
but my Q is:
How can i use unicode range (basic latin, arabic, arabic presentation form B) together to design a font file for Arabic language..
and is there a relationship between glyph index and unicode number?
How can I connect two unicode range together? like basic latin, arabic.
Not knowing Arabic it is hard to know what problems you might encounter. You can assign any character to any code-point, but you have to decide how your word-processor is going to type these new characters. If you want A to type ARABIC LETTER ALEF then you use the Unicode code-point 65 (decimal) or 0041 (hexadecimal) to design that glyph.
The Gylph Index is not related to the Unicode code-point. The first glyph in the font has an index of 0, the second glyph is 1, and the third is glyph index 2, etc. See Recommended Glyphs in the user manual. The glyphs may be in any order, or they can be sorted by using the Sort option from the Font Menu. The sort order is not obvious.
You can link glyphs by using composites. For example, in English fonts we might link Angstrom Unit (decimal codepoint 8491) to A ring (197), Å. A ring might also be a composite, composed from A (65) and ring ˚ (730). So Angstrom unit could be composed either from one glyph member (197), or from two (65) and (730). One easy way to link to glyphs to a composite is to select them both in the Font Overview window, copy them to the clipboard, then open the empty Glyph Edit Window and paste them in. Move them to the right positions, and change the side bearings to suit.
If you look at existing fonts like Times New Roman, you can see how accented characters áéíóú etc., are composed from different glyphs.
To insert a whole character set at once, use the Insert Character menu (available only in the Professional or 30-day trial version). Select the Arabic character set, double-click on the first character in the set to add its code-point to the dialogue, Shift and double-click on the last character in the range to add the entire range. You might end up wiith something like 1536-1791 in the dialogue box. Then OK to add these empty characters to your font. All this does is add the correct mappings. You have to add the glyph outlines from scanned images or by copying glyphs from a font that you are legally entitled to use.
Have you seen Chapter 8 of the Unicode standard version 5.0.0?
http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.0.0/ch08.pdf
I know almost nothing about encoding Arabic characters, however I did remember something about the Arabic Presentation Forms-B encodings so I looked it up.
There is a section about the Arabic Presentation Forms-B encodings within that document. It appears that it is largely for compatibility with older standards. However, the characters are encoded in Unicode and could be included in a font of so desired. Yet please be aware that that might not be the Unicode-suggested way to proceed. However, it might be that for use on some computer system and package combinations that producing such a font would be helpful, particularly for, say, producing hardcopy printouts rather than for electronic publishing. I do not know the answer to that. Maybe some other member of this forum can comment on that.
The various chapters of the Unicode standard version 5.0.0 are available from the following web page.
http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.0.0/
The following page provides access to the code charts.
http://www.unicode.org/charts/
There are four pdf documents available.
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0600.pdf
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0750.pdf
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFB50.pdf
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFE70.pdf
William Overington
27 June 2007