IMUG = International Multilingual User Group

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

Founded in 1987 by Yuan Ho and Seth Schneider, IMUG (International Multilingual User Group) has become Silicon Valley’s best user group for all matters related to internationalization, localization, and globalization. Meeting once a month, usually the third Thursday, IMUG meetings include a presentation by a distinguished member of the internationalization, localization, or globalization community. Adobe began hosting IMUG meetings in 2010 for odd-numbered months, and its Globalization Engineering Council serves as the official host. Even-numbered months are hosted by Google.

Regardless of whether you reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, I encourage you to attend IMUG meetings. Those that are hosted by Adobe are broadcasted via Adobe Connect, meaning that attendees need not be on site.

It seems that I have presented for IMUG six times, in 1995 (Adobe Systems’ CID-Keyed Fonts For Large Character Sets), 1999 (Adventures in Multilingual Publishing), 2005 (The Adobe-Japan1-6 Character Collection), 2008 (Ideographic Variation Sequences: Implementation Details), 2010 (Kazuraki: Adobe Systems’ Groundbreaking New Japanese Typeface), and 2011 (The Power of “Plain Text” & the Importance of Meaningful Content).

The next IMUG meeting, which will be hosted at Adobe, will include an intriguing presentation by Microsoft’s Michael Kaplan, which will be about new internationalization features in Windows 8, scheduled to be released on October 26, 2012, which is, by the way, approximately two months before our world ends. Please plan to attend, either in person or via Adobe Connect.

Glyph Corrections Via AFDKO Tools

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

I spent part of this week staging the data for some minor glyph corrections for our Kozuka Mincho and Kozuka Gothic fonts—and those that are derived from them—and was reminded that the techniques I described in the February 27, 2012 article are incredibly useful and indeed time-saving. These same techniques were also conveyed during the AM session of the June 25, 2012 AFDKO Workshop, as shown is the presentation slide below:

Adobe Type Community Translation

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Nicole Miñoza | Comments (0)

Today the Adobe Type team launched a new pilot program for Community Translation. This program is aimed at getting translations for Adobe’s typeface notes and will reward contributors with free fonts. The team will be using an internal Adobe tool, the Adobe Translator application, to get translations for their 400+ typeface notes (also referred to as typeface histories). These typeface notes provide users additional information about the typeface and often include information about the history of the typeface. On average, these typeface notes are about 100 words in length. Continue reading…

Minor Adobe-Japan1-6 Unicode CMap Resource Update

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

Many thanks to Nozomu KATŌ (加藤望) for bringing to my attention that the Adobe-Japan1-6 Unicode CMap resources were missing the following mapping:

U+207F → CID+15908

I decided to add this mapping to the following eight Adobe-Japan1-6 Unicode CMap resources this evening:

UniJIS-UTF8-H
UniJIS-UTF16-H
UniJIS-UTF32-H
UniJIS2004-UTF8-H
UniJIS2004-UTF16-H
UniJIS2004-UTF32-H
UniJISX0213-UTF32-H
UniJISX02132004-UTF32-H

The eight updated CMap resources were just posted to the CMap Resources open source project that is hosted at Open @ Adobe, and the details are in the associated forum post.

Enjoy!

To CID, Or Not To CID

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

When developing OpenType/CFF fonts, in particular CJK ones or those with a large number of glyphs, one question that I am often asked by developers is whether it should be name-keyed or CID-keyed. The answer to this question is not simple, though it truly is a binary condition.
Continue reading…

Adobe’s First Open Source Font: Kenten Generic

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

Hoping not to detract from the attention that Paul Hunt‘s Source Sans Pro, Adobe’s first open source typeface family, deserves, I’d like to use this opportunity to point out that another font, a single typeface design with a very small number of glyphs, was Adobe’s first entry in the open source world, in terms of font offerings. Kenten Generic was released on November 4th, 2010 at the Open @ Adobe portal. It includes only thirteen glyphs—ten of which are functional—that are intended for use in typesetting emphasis marks, which are referred to as kenten (圏点) in Japanese, hence the font’s name. The easiest way to view its glyphs is to download its Unicode-based glyph synopsis.
Continue reading…

O… M… G…

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

I just spent a few minutes perusing the ATypI Hong Kong 2012 program. OMG. This is a literal dream come true for those interested in East Asian (aka CJK) typographic issues. Never before has this collection of experts gathered in a single location. My only regret is that I am unable to clone myself, because there are concurrent sessions in which I interested, or sessions that are taking place at the same time I am scheduled to present.

Again, if you’re on the fence about attending ATypI Hong Kong 2012, I urge you to attend. Such an opportunity is unlikely to present itself for a long time.

ATypI Hong Kong 2012 Program

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

For those who are already planning to attend ATypI Hong Kong 2012, or are considering it, the program has just been posted. The Keynote Speakers were announced a small number of weeks ago.

Given that this is the first time that ATypI will take place in East Asia, the number of CJK-related presentations is relatively high, and this should be expected considering its venue. To those who are on the fence about attending, I urge you to attend because ATypI is not likely to take place in East Asia for many more years. It is an opportunity that should not be missed. And, like other conferences, one of the greatest benefits—not listed on the program—is the opportunity for one-on-one interactions with others in this industry.

As a side note, I am very much looking forward to speaking at and attending ATypI Hong Kong 2012, and meeting new and familiar faces while there.

CFR Support in Mac OS X Version 10.8 (Mountain Lion)

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

On July 25, 2012, Apple released to the world Mac OS X Version 10.8 (aka Mountain Lion). Among the many new features in this latest iteration of Mac OS X is support for CFR objects. For those who are not aware, CFR objects are based on ISO/IEC 14496-28:2012 (Composite Font Representation), and are used to define both composite fonts and fallback fonts. CFR objects effectively break the 64K glyph barrier. Mac OS X Version 10.8 is thus the first implementation that has broken the 64K glyph barrier.
Continue reading…

Tokyo AFDKO Workshop (PM Session)

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Dr. Ken Lunde | Comments (0)

Once again, to those who were able to attend the Tokyo AFDKO Workshop that was held at Morisawa‘s Tokyo office on June 25th, thank you for your participation! Not counting those from Adobe and Morisawa, a total of 21 people attended. (Details about the AM session were covered in the previous article.)

For those who attended, and for those who could not attend, the presentation for Masataka Hattori’s (服部正貴) portion of the workshop is now available for download. Besides demonstrating how to build OpenType/CFF fonts based on the Adobe-Japan1-x and Adobe-Identity-0 ROSes, one of the highlights of Masataka’s presentation was demonstrating how to build a font that includes fully-proportional kana glyphs, based on the proven techniques which were used to develop Kazuraki (かづらき) that are detailed in Adobe Tech Note #5901 (Special-Purpose OpenType Japanese Font Tutorial: Kazuraki).
Continue reading…