Re: Codepage?

[Rob Kramer]

> No.
> There is nothing like a codepage that is needed to access data in a font.
>
> Or more precisely, you need to use codepage 1200, which is another name
> for Unicode native format, for the "normal" fonts. For fonts that tries
> to mimic a given codepage while being in fact a "normal" (alias
> Win 3.1 ANSI) font, which I consider being a bad idea BTW, there is no
> way to "know" what for a codepage is used, you need to guess (sometimes
> names gives educated guesses: for example, if the font name ends with
> CE or Cyr or Greek, 1250 resp. 1251 resp. 1253 is probable; if it ends
> in TSCII it is in the Tamil codepage named TSCII; etc.)
>
> To be complete, there is a obscure hack in some Windows 3.1 fonts.
> I (or Adam) can explain it more fully if that is really what you need
> to know, but it is IMHO so horrible that I would not give you false
> paths.

Hmm. I'm not sure if I follow all this. Let me explain why I asked.

My application uses FreeType to show fonts. The text shown comes from a file
that was cut-and-pasted from WinWord for example (taking care that the text
is not 7th-bit stripped in the process). If the user types Thai text in Word
using the 'PSL Irene' font (psli.ttf), this should somehow appear correctly
in my application.

I figured out that the codepage that font uses is actually the 'Symbol' page
at 0xf000 (I believe). So if the user wants to display using psli.ttf, he
has to specify the fontname and the codepage. I had problems with a Russian
font because I couldn't see what the codepage was, and I've never seen a
codepage 1200 to be honest.

Obviously, it's no good to let the user specify a codepage, but I didn't
(and don't) know how to do it otherwise...

> > Right now I have to get the user to specify the codepage if he wants it
> > to be anything other than zero, but users usually don't understand much
> > about codepages..
>
> And Freetype does not understand much either!

Do you mean some Freetype users? :)

Thanks!

    Rob Kramer
    address@hidden