[XeTeX] FreeSerif not working for me in Devanagari

[Zdenek Wagner]

2012/9/12 Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa at web.de>:
> Hello!
>
> To me it seems that some problems with XeTeX come from using inappropriate fonts, fonts which don't have the glyphs needed, don't support a particular script or the language which will be used with the particular script to typeset the text. Partly it's the fault of the users not exploring the fonts in depth. I also think that demanding this preparatory work from the XeTeX user can be too much.
>
> Why not implementing this check, whether the font will work for the purpose intended, into XeTeX? Not as a regular step in preparing the output - this would take too much time and every time - but as an option that only outputs a judgement on the font. A verbose option would then make XeTeX report deficiencies of the font and, maybe, recommend another font(s).
>
> I think a set of empirical rules, heuristics, would suffice: checking the presence of necessary features and tables, emitting a warning when a ligature is missing...
>
> Could this be an useful enhancement?
>
Yes, it would be useful. This could even be implemented in TeX,
Polyglossia alrady makes some basic checks. However, such simple check
cannot detect that the ligature exists but the shape is not correct.
And verification of completness of any Indic script will be very
difficult. Take for instance Sanskrit ligature ktrya. It is composed
of four consonants that are glued together by three viramas, ie
altogether 7 unicode codepoints. Hindi requires about 230 conjuncts.
Each of the 38 consonants and 230 conjuncts can be accompanied by one
of eleven dependent vowels and optionally also by anusvara or
candrabindu or visarga (Sanskrit containd three additional vowels). I
have seen fonts where all these combinations produce something but
many of them are wrong. I think the only solution is to have good
sample text that will test all features, typeset it and look at the
result.

> --
> Greetings
>
>   Pete
>
> Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a night, but set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz