Displaying non-Western fonts

On Sep 17, 6:46 am, Sander Tekelenburg <u... RemoveThis @domain.invalid> wrote:
> In article <1189947429.458410.323... RemoveThis @57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Lancelot <l... RemoveThis @aya.yale.edu> wrote:
> > [...] Georgian (kartuli) or Russian (Cyrillic). [...] with web browsers these non-Western
> > fonts just show up as a string of "????".
>
> Which Mac OS version, which browsers, and which sites?
>
> --
> Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/%7Etekelenb/>

On Sep 17, 6:46 am, Sander Tekelenburg <u....DeleteThis@domain.invalid> wrote:
> In article <1189947429.458410.323....DeleteThis@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Lancelot <l....DeleteThis@aya.yale.edu> wrote:
> > [...] Georgian (kartuli) or Russian (Cyrillic). [...] with web browsers these non-Western
> > fonts just show up as a string of "????".
>
> Which Mac OS version, which browsers, and which sites?
>
> --
> Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/%7Etekelenb/>

Mac OS X 10.4.10; Safari, Camino, Firefox, Opera; Google.ge (the
georgian google address), http://www.caucasus.net, among others

In article <1190040922.417318.175370.DeleteThis@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>,
Lancelot <lrf.DeleteThis@aya.yale.edu> wrote:

> Google.ge (the georgian google address)

The HTML says charset=UTF-8 ... is that right?

On Sun, 16 Sep 2007, Lancelot wrote:

> On the Mac I have downloaded and installed more than 40 Georgian
> fonts.

Which fonts? URLs?

> I have no trouble displaying and using them to write documents
> with MS Word or TextEdit. But with web browsers these non-Western
> fonts just show up as a string of "????".

The fonts must conform to the Unicode standard.
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10A0.pdf

That you can use your fonts in a word processor doesn't prove
anything. You might even type Georgian (or Cyrillic) with fonts
that have Georgian (Cyrillic) letters in ASCII positions.

Test your Georgian (and Cyrillic) fonts here:
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/georgian-alphabet.html

On Sep 17, 7:29 pm, A N Niel <ann....DeleteThis@nym.alias.net.invalid> wrote:
> In article <1190040922.417318.175....DeleteThis@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Lancelot <l....DeleteThis@aya.yale.edu> wrote:
> > Google.ge (the georgian google address)
>
> The HTML says charset=UTF-8 ... is that right?

Yes.

In article <1190040922.417318.175370.RemoveThis@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>,
Lancelot <lrf.RemoveThis@aya.yale.edu> wrote:

> On Sep 17, 6:46 am, Sander Tekelenburg <u....RemoveThis@domain.invalid> wrote:
> > In article <1189947429.458410.323....RemoveThis@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
> >
> > Lancelot <l....RemoveThis@aya.yale.edu> wrote:
> > > [...] Georgian (kartuli) or Russian (Cyrillic). [...] with web browsers
> > > these non-Western
> > > fonts just show up as a string of "????".

[...]

> Mac OS X 10.4.10; Safari, Camino, Firefox, Opera; Google.ge (the
> georgian google address), http://www.caucasus.net, among others

That document claims to be utf-8 (only within the document itself,
unfortunately, but most browsers will accept that). Assuming it actually
*is* utf-8, it should work. That is, if, as Andreas points out, you have
a unicode font that contains kartuli. I don't know if I any of the
'built-in' Mac OS X fonts do.

Note that you'll need to ensure that your browser uses the correct
fonts. The site suggests (through CSS) Helvetica. If your Helvetica does
not contain kartuli, you'll need to make sure that your browser uses a
font that does contain kartuli. (Override the CSS with * {font-family:
"font name" !important}, for example.)

I can't seem to get that page to display correct myself under 10.4.10
with iCab 3, Safari 2, Firefox 3, or Opera 9.5. I may not have installed
any and all fonts that the Mac OS X installer provides though. IE6 under
a default install of XP appears to show the intended characters. (Note
that I don't read karuli -- I'm just judging by comparing the characters
with those in the images.)

--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/%7Etekelenb/>

On Sep 18, 6:29 am, Sander Tekelenburg <u... DeleteThis @domain.invalid> wrote:
> In article <1190040922.417318.175... DeleteThis @19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Lancelot <l... DeleteThis @aya.yale.edu> wrote:
> > On Sep 17, 6:46 am, Sander Tekelenburg <u... DeleteThis @domain.invalid> wrote:
> > > In article <1189947429.458410.323... DeleteThis @57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
>
> > > Lancelot <l... DeleteThis @aya.yale.edu> wrote:
> > > > [...] Georgian (kartuli) or Russian (Cyrillic). [...] with web browsers
> > > > these non-Western
> > > > fonts just show up as a string of "????".
>
> [...]
>
> > Mac OS X 10.4.10; Safari, Camino, Firefox, Opera; Google.ge (the
> > georgian google address),http://www.caucasus.net, among others
>
> That document claims to be utf-8 (only within the document itself,
> unfortunately, but most browsers will accept that). Assuming it actually
> *is* utf-8, it should work. That is, if, as Andreas points out, you have
> a unicode font that contains kartuli. I don't know if I any of the
> 'built-in' Mac OS X fonts do.
>
> Note that you'll need to ensure that your browser uses the correct
> fonts. The site suggests (through CSS) Helvetica. If your Helvetica does
> not contain kartuli, you'll need to make sure that your browser uses a
> font that does contain kartuli. (Override the CSS with * {font-family:
> "font name" !important}, for example.)
>
> I can't seem to get that page to display correct myself under 10.4.10
> with iCab 3, Safari 2, Firefox 3, or Opera 9.5. I may not have installed
> any and all fonts that the Mac OS X installer provides though. IE6 under
> a default install of XP appears to show the intended characters. (Note
> that I don't read karuli -- I'm just judging by comparing the characters
> with those in the images.)
>
> --
> Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/%7Etekelenb/>

Problem Solved!

Thanks to Andreas and Sander for all of your help. The solution was
what Andreas proposed in the first reply -- that I needed to have
Georgian fonts conforming to the unicode standard. A friend of mine
gave me a couple of them from her Macintosh and I also downloaded some
that I found on the Internet. At this point I don't know exactly which
fonts made the difference, for this reason:

At first, immediately after I installed the new fonts, it didn't make
any difference in how web pages with Georgian characters were
displayed. But after I closed the application and then restarted it,
then the Georgian characters appeared correctly. Perhaps the browsers
only scan the installed font set when the browser is first started,
not when a particular web page is read.

Lancelot Fletcher

On Sep 18, 7:23 pm, Andreas Prilop <Prilop2....DeleteThis@trashmail.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Sep 2007, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:
> > I don't know if I any of the 'built-in' Mac OS X fonts do.
>
> Currently, Apple does not supply a font with Georgian letters.
>
> > The site suggests (through CSS) Helvetica.
>
> For Georgian text they suggest Sylfaen, which comes with Windows XP.
> http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fonts.html#georgian
>

In my case the problem was solved when I installed Georgian unicode
fonts -- before I installed sylfaen. I have now installed that one
too, but I have not yet seen any difference. Also, once I had the
Georgian unicode fonts installed I did not need to make any adjustment
in any of the preferences. With the right fonts it seems the default
preferenes were ok.

Lancelot Fletcher

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

> I don't know if I any of the 'built-in' Mac OS X fonts do.

Currently, Apple does not supply a font with Georgian letters.

> The site suggests (through CSS) Helvetica.

For Georgian text they suggest Sylfaen, which comes with Windows XP.
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fonts.html#georgian

> (Override the CSS with * {font-family:
> "font name" !important}, for example.)

It's a lot easier to do this in the browser's prefs.

In article
<Pine.GSO.4.63.0709181718340.3473 RemoveThis @s5b004.rrzn.uni-hannover.de>,
Andreas Prilop <Prilop2007 RemoveThis @trashmail.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 18 Sep 2007, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

[...]

> > (Override the CSS with * {font-family:
> > "font name" !important}, for example.)
>
> It's a lot easier to do this in the browser's prefs.

For most users that'll be easiest. Agreed. But not every browser offers
a pref for this. (Safari's prefs allow you to define a default font, but
not to have that override author-suggestions.) So it seemed to make
sense to mention the CSS approach.

--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/%7Etekelenb/>

In article <1190120961.223127.211060 DeleteThis @57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
Lancelot <lrf DeleteThis @aya.yale.edu> wrote:

[...]

> Problem Solved!

Great

[...]

> At first, immediately after I installed the new fonts, it didn't make
> any difference in how web pages with Georgian characters were
> displayed. But after I closed the application and then restarted it,
> then the Georgian characters appeared correctly.

Yeah, fonts don't get loaded dynamically. Just when the app is
(re)launched. (Well, that is my experience -- I haven't checked the
docs/source code.)

--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/%7Etekelenb/>