Archive for March, 2016

The Joy of tx

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

One of the most powerful font-development tools available today is tx (Type eXchange), which is included in AFDKO (Adobe Font Development Kit for OpenType) and whose sources are also available on GitHub. Despite its two-letter name, this command-line utility is packed with an enormous amount of features and functionality.

Four years ago I wrote a similar article, but it seems like a good time to revisit tx and the useful things that it can do. I still recommend that its “-u” and -h” command-line options be used to explore its vast capabilities.
Continue reading…

“Bahts is [not] parts”

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

—Mistakes happen—

—Humans make mistakes—

—Anything made by humans has the potential to include mistakes—

The most important things about mistakes are that 1) we recognize them, lest they propagate; 2) we learn from them; 3) we make an effort not to repeat them; and 4) we try to fix them, if possible.

Some mistakes are more easily fixed than others. Mistakes that cannot be fixed must be worked around.

With that said, an interesting event of historical significance occurred in June of 2000:
Continue reading…

The Missing Link

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

The first version of the IVD (Ideographic Variation Database) was issued on 2007-12-14, meaning over eight years ago, and there have been three subsequent revisions, the latest being issued on 2014-05-16. There are currently three registered IVD collections: Adobe-Japan1, Hanyo-Denshi, and Moji_Joho. A significant number of IVSes are shared between the latter two IVD collections, 9,685 to be exact. While I cannot speak to the latter two IVD collections, the Adobe-Japan1 one is supported by hundreds of OpenType fonts via the Format 14 (Unicode Variation Sequences) ‘cmap‘ subtable. Furthermore, the number of apps and OSes that support UVSes has reached critical mass.

With all that said, there is a rather substantial missing link in terms of IVD support infrastructure: the all-important input method.
Continue reading…

UTC #147

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (2)

The next UTC (Unicode Technical Committee) meeting, the 147th one, takes place during the week of May 9th, and will be hosted at the Adobe headquarters in San José, California. All members of the Unicode Consortium, especially voting members, are encouraged to attend.
Continue reading…