Arabic / Urdu Character mapping

[syedraheem]

there are several initial / medial forms in Urdu (Nastalaiq Font) how can i map these & give the unicode names. need help for mapping as well as making table for it.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I looked at the font, but not knowing Urdu makes it very difficult to help.

All of the glyphs seem to be mapped already and have postscript names.

I ran a font validation test and fixed some errors.
This is the validated version of the font.

This is a Character Map produced using MainType.

[Yehuda]

For Arabic-based alphabets, including Urdu, the connecting forms of the letters (initial, medial, and final) are encoded in the Alphabetic Presentation Forms block, starting at hex FB50. I believe (I don't have the time to check this out now) that the appropriate substitutions are made in Windows (i.e. if you just type the letters they are connected correctly) even if the font does not have the OpenType code.

[William]

The code charts are available in pdf form from the following web page.

http://www.unicode.org/charts/

The following web page has chapters of the Unicode Standard in pdf form.

http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.0.0/

Arabic Script is featured within Chapter 8 Middle Eastern Scripts.

http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.0.0/ch08.pdf

William Overington

19 March 2008