Unicode character ranges to show in Word

FontCreator - Font Editor FontCreator - Support
1

Hi,

I have FontCreator Home Edition 5.6.

Under Format → Platform Manager ‘Windows Unicode UCS-4 platform’ isn’t available, but I have the following platforms set for my font: Macintosh Roman, Microsoft Unicode BMP only, Microsoft Unicode full repertoire, and Unicode 2.0 and onwards BMP.

Format → Naming is done.

Format → Settings → Ranges: among others I have selected ‘Tagalog, Hanunoo, Buhid and Tagbanwa’, ‘Old Italic’, and ‘Gothic’.

Character to Glyph Index Mappings for the Microsoft Unicode full repertoire platform, with encoding format ‘Segmented coverage’, is done for certain chars from the ‘Tagalog…’ range and for all of the ‘Old Italic’ and ‘Gothic’.

I have been installing, uninstalling, zapping, and restarting Windows for the better part of the afternoon and evening, yet I can’t get these ranges to show in Word (2003). I have also downloaded ALPHABETUM (alphademo) to compare its setup with mine, and it seems all the relevant options match. In Word, the alphademo ‘Old Italic’ and ‘Gothic’ ranges are displayed as Private Use Area and not under their respective names, but I don’t know whether that’s relevant.

The question is, how do I get these ranges to show in Word?

Regards,
Ninna

2

Thanks for sending the font file to us. We’ve investigated the problem, but don’t see anything wrong with the font. It works just fine with Microsoft Office Word 2007. Can you send some screen shots that show exactly what goes wrong in Word 2003?

Note: You don’t have any glyphs that are mapped to supplementary planes, so I’ve split the topic and moved your post to the support forum

3

Sorry to reply so late - I wasn’t aware of the topic having been split and moved.

Attached images:

01-FontCreator (Character to Glyph Index Mappings)
01-FontCreator.png
02-FontCreator (Unicode Range Settings)
02-FontCreator.png
03-MozillaFirefox (Unicode characters from U+1700 to U+171F, U+10300 to U+1032F, U+10330 to U+103FF, from http://theorem.ca/~mvcorks/code/charsets/auto.html)
03-MozillaFirefox.png
04-Word2003 (Table listing available ranges with sample characters - black; missing ranges - red)
04-Word2003.png
05-Word2003 (‘Insert Symbol’ with available ranges from Runic onwards)
05-Word2003.png
Comments:
01-03 considering that on your end in Word 2007 all works fine and that in Mozilla displayed chars reflect mappings from my font, it is unlikely that the problem lies on the font creation side.
04-05 clearly show that Tagalog, Old Italic, and Gothic ranges are not available.

Gothic range on the basis of Robert Pfeffer’s Ulfilas, with the permission of the author http://robert-pfeffer.spacequadrat.de/schriftarten/englisch/index.html

4

Old Italic and Gothic are not available in your font, so I totally understand why those won’t work.

I’m not sure if the images do show Tagalog is not available. All it proofs is the first and last of the range are missing. I haven’t looked into this, but please try if one or more do work.

Also it might be possible Word 2003 just wasn’t ready for these ranges. Do you know have other fonts that do show up the characters in these ranges in Word 2003?

5

Sorry Ninna, I deleted your last post by mistake. Brain malfunction.

I don’t specifically have a font (as far as I know) that would have these ranges mapped correctly, but if you do, I could test it in Word 2003. As for Word 2003 being or not being ready for these changes, I’m not really qualified to know, but I guess I thought someone on your end would be, since neither Word in general nor Word 2003 are rare or unusual applications where fonts are used.

For testing purposes, you can find some free Tagalog fonts on Alan Wood’s Pages

6

I still had the post open this morning, so I do have the content of that post:



Old Italic and Gothic are not available in your font, so I totally understand why those won’t work.

Well, I don’t, since they clearly are available in my font:
01-FontCreator.png ‘Microsoft Unicode Full repertoire’
02-FontCreator.png ranges are selected
03-MozillaFirefox.png ‘Unicode characters from U+10300 to U+1032F, U+10330 to U+103FF’ (please note that some are empty but not absent - i.e. they are already mapped but glyphs aren’t designed yet)

plus you wrote that

It works just fine with Microsoft Office Word 2007

by which I presume you meant the ranges in question, and not the remaining unproblematic ranges.

I’m not sure if the images do show Tagalog is not available. All it proofs is the first and last of the range are missing.

05-Word2003 (‘Insert Symbol’ with available ranges from Runic onwards) the red lines mark the spots where Tagalog should be, and, as you can see, there isn’t a single character from this range available in Word. In 04.png I used, in most cases, first and last from the range for the testing purpose, but it applies to other characters as well. If you like, I can produce more images, but I don’t see what these could demonstrate that isn’t already shown in the original 5.

please try if one or more do work

All 3 ranges have been tested with in a number of configurations: with all chars mapped, some of them mapped, just one mapped, just one but a different one mapped, etc. and all that included installing, viewing, uninstalling, deleting and zapping the deleted file, restarting the system, and installing… many times over; as well as changing the name of the font.

Also it might be possible Word 2003 just wasn’t ready for these ranges. Do you know have other fonts that do show up the characters in these ranges in Word 2003?

I don’t specifically have a font (as far as I know) that would have these ranges mapped correctly, but if you do, I could test it in Word 2003. As for Word 2003 being or not being ready for these changes, I’m not really qualified to know, but I guess I thought someone on your end would be, since neither Word in general nor Word 2003 are rare or unusual applications where fonts are used.

7

Having selected and installed from under Control Panel > Regional and language options > Languages the 2 options for additional language support (don’t know their proper names in English and don’t know which one did the trick), all 3 ranges are now displayed in Word when pasted, but are still unavailable from under ‘Insert Symbol’. When a pasted char is selected and ‘Insert Symbol’ clicked, for Tagalog the appropriate symbol appears in the upper left corner, while for Old Italic and Gothic the same space in empty.

According to BabelMap (http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Software/BabelMap.html) all 3 ranges are now available in my system.

According to SIL (http://scripts.sil.org/cms/SCRIPTs/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=UnicodeSupport#apps), Word 2003 supports BMP and supplementary planes.

Without ranges being visible under ‘Insert Symbol’ this is only half-good, since it requires constant copy-pasting from another source, as opposed to custom keyboard shortcuts, which are instantaneous.

PS It is the same for Tagalog fonts on Alan Wood’s Pages and Old Italic and Gothic from Alphabetum.

8

Good to hear you’re making progress.

MainType will show you all characters available in a font. It also allows you to copy and paste individual characters into your word processor. Maybe that gives you more information, otherwise I suggest you post a question in a Microsoft newsgroup:
news:microsoft.public.word.general

9

thanx
before i go & make nuisance of myself elsewhere, would you be so kind as to post or send me previews for Word 2007 corresponding to mine (06-Word2003.png, 07-Word2003.png, 08-Word2003.png)?

10

(please note that some are empty but not absent - i.e. they are already mapped but glyphs aren’t designed yet)

I don’t know if this will help, but my experience with Word 97, the only version I have available, is that a mapped cell with no glyph in it will not show in the Insert Symbol facility.

So, maybe just putting something like a triangle in the glyph as a placemarker and trying again might be worth trying. It may or may not work, but it might be worth a try.

William Overington

20 October 2009

11

my experience with Word 97, the only version I have available, is that a mapped cell with no glyph in it will not show in the Insert Symbol facility.

this doesn’t seem to be a problem in 2003 - if sth is mapped correctly, it will show in the Insert Symbol, unless it’s in one of those ranges that I mentioned, in which case the entire range doesn’t show; with Tagalog, to make matters more interesting, a pasted symbol then shows in the slot for 0020, which when clicked, changes back to whatever glyph is really mapped there, and consequently the true 0020 will be pasted

thanks for the idea though :slight_smile:

12

That was a very confusing statement, sorry for that. I actually meant to say the font did install fine and I was able to type some (Latin) text in Word. Since the font didn’t contain glyphs that are mapped to supplementary planes I never tried those.

13

ok, then we’re both confused…
the problematic ranges in my font are Tagalog etc., Old Italic, and Gothic
the font I sent you had glyphs mapped accordingly, though in the case of Old Italic for instance, some glyphs were empty

let’s take Gothic
Gothic has a full set of glyphs, all mapped to the Gothic range.
10-FontCreator.png
11-FontCreator.png
12-FontCreator.png
13-FontCreator.png
According to BabelMap this range is available for this font in my system.
14-BabelMap.png
Word 2003 is able to display them when pasted, but not to insert them, since the entire range is missing in the ‘Insert Symbol’ window.
15-Word2003.png
Does Word 2007 behave differently? Can you see this range in the ‘Insert Symbol’ window? Could you post a screen for me if you do? If not, then maybe the problem isn’t just Word 2003? I have no access to 2007, and when I ask Microsoft, I’d like to be able to give details. If you don’t see Gothic in Word 2007, do you see it mapped in FontCreator or not?

14

For some reason I missed the mappings that do exist in the supplementary planes. I guess I only noticed the PUA mappings…

This image illustrates what I see in my Dutch Microsoft Word when I select your font (a test version from the FontCreator Font Test dialog).
insertsymbol.png

15

Dank u wel :slight_smile: