Font Forum

If I were to design a Brahmic script like Tamil would it need to use a shaping engine like the Arabic fonts ?

If it does then is this automatic or do I have to do something ?

Indic scripts do require the OS/application shaping to be compliant/capable of these moderately complex ltr languages (there are more complex ltr scripts).

So there are required features and glyphs a Unicode Indic script has to have so the OS and applications' shaping can occur.

(Even Western text requires "a shaping engine." The issue is can the OS and/or application handle shaping for X language.)

MikeW wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 1:35 pm The issue is can the OS and/or application handle shaping for X language.

So I guess the question is, can Windows render Tamil ? And a subsequent question, Can Mac OS render Tamil ?

I have been asked to add Tamil to 'Bainsley', it has become apparent that there is a lot more to it than just adding the glyphs (in fact adding the glyphs is the easy part) there is a lot of open type mechanics which needs to be added to make it all work.

The person requesting this knows all about Tamil and how the characters change in combination with each other, but his knowledge comes from calligraphy, he knows nothing about font editing or open type.

This will take a while I think.

PJMiller wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 10:33 am If I were to design a Brahmic script like Tamil would it need to use a shaping engine like the Arabic fonts ?

If it does then is this automatic or do I have to do something ?

The shaping engine will do the magic, as long as the font contains the required OpenType layout features.

See also:
Developing OpenType Fonts for Tamil Script

Note: the shaping engine used in FontCreator does not support reordering characters, so always test your font externally; we recommend the Web Font test as available through FontCreator.

Erwin Denissen wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 7:48 pm See also:
Developing OpenType Fonts for Tamil Script

Very good and just what I was looking for, thanks. But it looks a little complex, I think I will have to read it several times before I comprehend any of it.

Hello Paul,
Maybe this font will help, it is from Google noto font