Re: Unicode TTF containing CJK?

[Mike Fabian <mfabian@example.com>]

Marc Christensen <marc@example.com> writes:

> I was looking around and found references to Bitstream's CyberBit font.  
> Many references to this font states that it is a Unicode font but when I
> install the font, and get a listing of which font's the file contained, it
> lists all iso8859 encodings.

How did you get that listing? Using ttmkfdir? ttmkfdir often doesn't
output all encodings which would make sense for a certain font.
The Bitstream Cyberbit font contains most characters from Unicode 2.0,
you just have to add a line like 

cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1

to you fonts.scale file (and call mkfontdir afterwards, see manpage
off mkfontdir). Currently I have the following entries in font.scale
for the Bitstream Cyberbit font:

    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-ascii-0
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-jisx0201.1976-0
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-jisx0208.1983-0
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-ksc5601.1987-0
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-ksx1001.1997-0
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-gb2312.1980-0
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-big5-0
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-big5.eten-0
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-cns11643.1992-1
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-cns11643.1992-2
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-cns11643.1992-3
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-cns11643.1992-4
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-cns11643.1992-5
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-cns11643.1992-6
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-cns11643.1992-7
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-ru
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-r
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-fcd8859-15
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-15
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-10
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-9
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-8
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-7
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-6
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-5
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-4
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-3
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-2
    cyberbit.ttf -Bitstream-Bitstream Cyberbit-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1

Just use the output of ttmkfdir as a starting point and add lines as
necessary. Of course if the font in question doesn't really contain
Japanese characters, adding a line ror jisx0208.1983-0 encoding won't
help you much. But the Bitstream Cyberbit font contains the CJK
characters and more, so it makes sense to add lines for
jisx0208.1983-0, iso10646-1 and others.

> The GNU-unifont lists all it's font's as
> being iso10646 encoded so I assume that that is the iso specification for
> unicode - right?

Yes.

> So, is iso8859 a subset of unicode?  Is Unicode a superset of 8859?

Yes. But the characters are ordered differently in iso8859-x and Unicode.

> What other TTFs are available besides Cyberbit?  Commercial and free?
> 
> Anyone tried Agfa/s Monotype?  Are there ay good free unicode fonts
> arownd?

Most TTF fonts are unicode encoded. But of course most of them don't
contain the complete repertoire of unicode. There are good free
Chinese TTF fonts (the Arphic fonts) and good Korean TTF fonts (the
Baekmuk fonts). Both are internally unicode fonts, but the X-server
can recode them to other encodings by listing the desired encodings
in fonts.scale as shown above. 

As far as I know there are no good, free TrueType fonts which cover most
of the Unicode repertoire like the Bitstream Cyberbit font.

-- 
Mike Fabian   <mfabian@example.com>   http://www.suse.de/~mfabian
睡眠不足はいい仕事の敵だ。