How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Layout?

Post general font related questions (e.g. how to install, convert and use fonts) and requests (looking for fonts, designers etc.) here.
Post Reply
ulaping
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:50 am

How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Layout?

Post by ulaping »

Okay here's the low-down:
1. I press the start button on my desktop.
2. Click on control panel.
3. Click on Change keyboard or input methods.
4. Click on the Change keyboards button which opens up this menu below:

Image

I then press the add button which opens up another menu with a list of keyboard layouts to choose from. My question is: how do I add my customized fonts (that I created in FontCreator) into that list. I've already installed my fonts and they work fine when I type them in Microsoft Works and Microsoft Word. I want to know how you convert FontCreator fonts into a keyboard layout so I can type them anywhere -- not just in Microsoft Word.
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11108
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Lay

Post by Erwin Denissen »

You can't, as Bhikkhu Pesala already explained. Just like you can't convert a music into a festival, or a pen into a book, etc.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
ulaping
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:50 am

Re: How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Lay

Post by ulaping »

Why not? How else would you go about creating a new Keyboard Layout (like Devanagari) in the first place? I know what Bhikkhu Pesala said: You can't upload a FontCreator font into Microsoft Keyboard Layout. I understand that now. But, what I fail to understand is, how are you suppose to insert customized characters into a blank keyboard layout such as in the image below.

I tried clicking on one of the blank keys on the Keyboard Layout to insert my customized character but instead of the customized keys, I get the default latin text in it's place. Then...........

Image

I tried to see if I can upload my font into the Keyboard Layout Creator by going into file and clicking on Load Existing Keyboard. A menu pops up with a list of keyboard layouts. I wanted to see if my customized fonts where listed, but just like I expected, they weren't there. So the only conclusion I can come with. The only solution I can think of in order to upload my customized fonts into Microsoft Keyboard Layout creator is to:

Convert my customized fonts into a keyboard layout. By doing this I'll be able to go to upload them into the Microsoft Keyboard Layout. I know this is possible, but for some reason no one is giving me the answer. Please tell me if you understand what I'm trying to convey here. I'll try to rephrase what I said if you still don't get what I'm saying.

Image
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9873
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Lay

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

ulaping wrote:Why not?
I already told you why not. Please, stop wasting your time and ours. Read my previous post again.

Open an existing Devanagari font in FontCreator that you have installed (you must have one installed if you can see the glyphs in MSKLC. I don't because I don't have a Devanagari font installed) to see how it is mapped, then map your font the same way and it will work with the same keyboard layout.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
ulaping
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:50 am

Re: How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Lay

Post by ulaping »

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:
ulaping wrote:Why not?
I already told you why not. Please, stop wasting your time and ours. Read my previous post again.

Open an existing Devanagari font in FontCreator that you have installed (you must have one installed if you can see the glyphs in MSKLC. I don't because I don't have a Devanagari font installed) to see how it is mapped, then map your font the same way and it will work with the same keyboard layout.
Really? You don't have a Devanagari font installed in your computer. My computer and MSKLC came with an already installed Devanagari font so I didn't have to install it. And I don't think I'm wasting everyone's time. I'm raising a lot of important questions that need to be asked and answered and so far this is by far one of the worst customer service I've ever experience. You assume that everyone will automatically know what to do just because you give a few instructions which don't make any sense to a newbie like me. I thought, I tried to be precise with my question by supplementing them with images, but still you couldn't solve my problem. This is the only board I can turn to for answers so I guess I'll have to figure a lot of things on my own ............... again.
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9873
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Lay

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

ulaping wrote:So far this is by far one of the worst customer service I've ever experience. You assume that everyone will automatically know what to do just because you give a few instructions which don't make any sense to a newbie like me.
I am just another user, and have no obligation to answer any of your questions at all, let alone about another product. You are clearly out of your depth trying to edit fonts, and need to do some background reading first or your font won't be much use to anyone. I cannot do your research for you, no matter how much of my free time I am willing to give.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9873
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Lay

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

ulaping wrote:Really? You don't have a Devanagari font installed in your computer. My computer and MSKLC came with an already installed Devanagari font so I didn't have to install it.
Why would an English speaker who doesn't know Hindi install a Devanagari font? In fact, on looking I see that I do have the font Vinda installed, because I have enabled Asian language support, but it doesn't display in MSKLC if I select the Devanagari (INSCRIPT) keyboard, although the Tamil font does when I select the Tamil keyboard.
Devanagari.png
Devanagari.png (32.11 KiB) Viewed 12423 times
You're really expecting too much. It is like you bought a CAD package to design your own house, and expect the software vendor to teach you how to draw architectural plans.

In fact, designing a font isn't as difficult as designing a house, but it does need a lot more knowledge than you might think. The best way to learn how fonts are designed is to open an existing font. I also offered twice to look at your font to see what you were doing wrong, but you did not respond to either of those requests.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Yehuda
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2002 12:58 pm
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Contact:

Re: How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Lay

Post by Yehuda »

Let me try to explain this.

A font maps character shapes ("glyphs") to numerical codes. These numerical codes are based on the Unicode standard. Devanagari characters occupy a bloc of codes beginning at 0900. If you make a Devanagari font, you should map the character shapes to the appropriate Unicode numbers.

A keyboard layout maps numerical codes to keystrokes. It does not map a font.

I hope this helps.
Yehuda N. Falk
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Israel

"And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere."
--Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Re: How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Lay

Post by William »

ulaping wrote:And I don't think I'm wasting everyone's time.

I do not think that you are wasting everyone's time either. Certainly you are not wasting my time as I am interested in trying to solve the problem.

I have not been able to answer your questions because I do not have experience with the Microsoft Keyboard Layout system.

On top of that I do not have any great knowledge of the Devanagari script.

It seems to me that an approach would be to try to break the learning process into smaller steps.

So, here is a question: could people who are experts possibly have a look at this question please, either to answer it or to say that the question is not the right question to ask?

Here is the question.

Question 1. Can one produce and use a Microsoft Keyboard Layout such that when one presses the h key on the keyboard the U+20AC EURO SIGN symbol appears on the screen, and if so how?

If we can do that, then maybe we can then try to move forward to solving a problem using Devenagari characters.

Also, it seems that the answer to another question needs to be found.

Question 2. Using the result of question 1, how does one choose a particular font for the display of the Euro sign symbol?

It might be that in order to do that one needs to be using an application program: so for the purposes of this question and any that follow on from it, can we use WordPad please as it comes bundled with Windows.

Here are links to some items about Devenagari.

http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf

http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UA8E0.pdf

The following item is just over 2 Megabytes and is not all about Devenagari.

http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/ch09.pdf

I suggest using U+20AC EURO SIGN as the first stage as many fonts today include a glyph for it and FontCreator includes a free glyph for it in a new font unless one chooses otherwise.

I chose h as it is in the middle of the keyboard.

I hope that this helps.

William Overington

4 May 2011
vanisaac
Posts: 337
Joined: Sun Mar 30, 2003 1:33 pm
Location: Washington State, USA

Re: How Do You Convert FontCreator Fonts into a Keyboard Lay

Post by vanisaac »

William wrote:
ulaping wrote:And I don't think I'm wasting everyone's time.

I have not been able to answer your questions because I do not have experience with the Microsoft Keyboard Layout system.

On top of that I do not have any great knowledge of the Devanagari script.

It seems to me that an approach would be to try to break the learning process into smaller steps.

So, here is a question: could people who are experts possibly have a look at this question please, either to answer it or to say that the question is not the right question to ask?
Crappola. I think that's me.

Ok, first things first. One: you cannot map a font to a keyboard. This is a concept that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Keyboards can only be defined to type a code point. This is a very important concept to learn, so pay attention, ulaping. EVERYTHING is held together by code points. Think of a code point as a number that we have decided means a certain thing, like "Devanagari letter Ka". A keyboard can ONLY define a keystroke to a code point - not a character, not a font, nothing but a number. The set of numbers that correspond in a modern computer to a given character is called the Unicode standard, and it assigns the hexidecimal (base 16) numbers 0900-097F to the standard letters of the Devanagari script, not including special characters needed for vedic texts.

Now this is the most important part. Because keyboards can only reference these numbers, a font has to assign its characters the same set of numbers in order for it to be used. As I said above, those numbers can be found in the Unicode Standard, and William provided the links to the Devanagari ranges in Unicode, above. So you need to go into your font, and for EVERY CHARACTER, figure out which code point (that's the little numbers under each character in the Unicode table, or on the left of the character list) corresponds to a given character in your font. Then go to your font, right click on that character (let's try Devanagari Ka for this example), select the Mappings tab, select the "Microsoft Unicode BMP only" platform, and then enter that number (0915), preceded by a '$' (ie '$0915'), and click Add. You should see that the character is now assigned to DEVANAGARI LETTER KA. Do this for EVERY CHARACTER IN YOUR FONT! - find it in the Unicode table or character list, right click the character in FCP, and add the mapping (code point) for that character in the Unicode BMP platform.

Now on to the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC). You probably don't have to do anything with this because the Devanagari INSCRIPT keyboard is already on your computer! You just need to install it in the Regional Language and Options Control Panel. If, by some combination of misfortune, you have code points that aren't in the INSCRIPT layout, then you will need to load the existing INSCRIPT keyboard in MSKLC, and then click on an empty key (check some of the checkboxes - not Ctrl - if you can't find any that are free), then enter the code point preceded by 'U+' or 'u+'. Note that the U+ designation for Unicode code points is considered standard, but FCP has to enable mappings to non-Unicode standards as well, so it falls back to the simple '$'. Please please please read all the documentation for MSKLC before you try to use your new keyboard, because you need to know about how to name and install layouts, and I'm kind of a hack at that particular part.

Once you've assigned the code points to the characters in your font and installed, the Devanagari keyboards will be able to type all of the letters that they can type and that are found in your font.

Most importantly, please read VERY CAREFULLY, the part about code points, because it is literally the missing link in your questions. Nothing works without a number attached to it. Not the characters in your font, not the keys on your keyboard. They are all held together by the code points that are defined in the Unicode Standard, and I would suggest that you read http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/ch01.pdf to get an overview of how these numbers are the backbone of everything.

-Van
Post Reply