Multilingual Fonts Guide

Guide to using multilingual fonts

Introduction

The terms typeface and font, though often used interchangeably, differ. A font is a collection of letters, numbers, and symbols in a distinctive typographic design. A typeface is a style within a set of fonts. For example the typeface Times New Roman comes as a roman font, an italic font, a bold font, and so on.

Font Formats

Bitmap Fonts (Screen fonts): A bitmapped screen font represents every character as a pattern of dots. Bitmaps are used for screen display of documents, (since screen resolution is usually lower than printer resolution). Bitmapped screen fonts are often accompanied by an outline printer font to ensure the print quality is high.
Outline Fonts (Printer Fonts): These come in either PostScript (PS) or TrueType (TT) format and are used for printing the document. TrueType and PostScript fonts are scalable fonts and can be displayed in any size without the loss of quality (unlike bitmapped fonts).
PostScript Fonts (PS): A PS font has two components: a bitmapped screen font and an outline printer font. These are separate computer files. If there is no corresponding outline printer font, the document will be printed with the bitmapped screen font only, and the print quality will be poor.

Macintosh Fonts

To install fonts on a Mac:

Drag the fonts onto your closed System folder icon.
You will get a prompt to verify whether the fonts should be placed in either the Fonts or Extensions folder.
The fonts will become instantly available as soon as an application is started.
To remove fonts from the machine one simply drags them from the appropriate folder into the wastebasket.

To switch between character sets:

Most fonts also allow access to accented characters by using the modifier keys (such as Shift, Alt or Option), Shift+Alt, and Command) in combination with letter and number keys.
For example, under Times holding down the Alt key, and then pressing 'u', followed by another u, will produce ü.

Mac font utilities:

Key Caps: Key Caps can be found under the Apple Menu (this utility comes installed with the system software). Simply select Key Caps from the menu and you will be presented with a miniature view of the keyboard as shown in the example. This utility is extremely useful to find out which combination of keys are needed to get a particular character or diacritic for each font. For example, try selecting Times and then holding down the Alt key to see how the keyboard changes in the Key Caps window.
Suitcase: Suitcase is a system extension which allows for the installation of a large number of fonts into the system. The program helps to conserve computer memory, by organizing and managing fonts. Once installed, Suitcase appears under the Apple Menu. Suitcase will only open the fonts which appear either as permanent or temporary within its program. Temporary fonts will be forgotten as soon as the system is shut down.
Adobe Type Manager (ATM): ATM is a Control Panel which preserves the quality of the font on screen by allowing a smooth display of the typeface at even the largest size. ATM is also used for printing documents using PostScript fonts on non-PS printers with quality comparable to that of a PostSript printer.

PC Fonts

To install fonts on Windows 3.1:

Click on the icon Mainin Windows,
Then on the icon Control Panels, Fonts.
Click the button True Type and make sure the box Enable True-Type Fontsis checked.
Select Add. A listing of fonts will appear in the lower window. Choose one of these by clicking on it or use the Select All button. Then click on the button Add.
Make sure the Copy Fonts to Windows Directory box is checked!

To install fonts on Windows 95:

Windows 95 has its own font installation utility for TrueType fonts. Click Start, Settings and then select Control Panel.
Under Control Panel open the Fonts folder. Under the Fonts File menu choose Install New Fonts and follow the procedure as with Windows 3.1 from step g above.
Windows 95 has also a built in option Multilingual Support under Windows Setup. This includes support for Central European Languages (Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovenian), Cyrillic (Bulgarian, Belarussian and Russian), and Greek (Modern Greek).
To enable PostScript fonts to be installed on a PC, ATM (Adobe Type Manager) is required.
After installing ATM, an icon labelled ATM Control Panel should be present somewhere on the desktop or as a Start Menu Item (Win95).
Start the ATM Control Panel via its icon. Click on the Add button.
In the Directories panel select the drive on which the fonts you want to install are located, then select the directory the fonts are in.
A list of the available fonts in that directory will appear in the panel on the left, under Available Fonts. To select the fonts you require, click on the listing for that font. If you wish to select more than one font, hold down the Ctrl key while making your selections.
If you wish the font files to be copied to your hard disk (and usually you would), make sure the Install Without Copying files checkbox is not checked and that you have specified the target directories where you want the files to go in the spaces below this (the default directories are usually OK).
Once the above steps have been carried out, click the Add button to finish installing the fonts. This will then take you back to the ATM Control Panel and the installed fonts should appear in the window.
Make sure that the ATM selector on the left is in the On position and that the Font Cache is set to a suitable amount, preferably 96K or more.
Exit button to complete the font setup.

To switch between character sets:

Press the modifier keys (e.g. Alt) in combination with certain letter and number keys. For example, under Times holding down Alt key, and then typing c will produce ç.

Windows font utilities:

Character Map: Under the Accessories folder of Windows there is a utility known as Character Map. This is very similar to Key Caps on the Macintosh. Once opened, you will be able to select a particular font and see which key combinations are needed for certain characters and diacritics.

Finding Fonts on the Internet

Many Languages

Fonts in Cyberspace, Summer Institute of Linguistics
Download fonts for many languages. Fonts are available for Mac, PC, and DOS.
Yamada Font Archive, University of Oregon
A mix of bitmap, postscript, and truetype fonts for many languages. Some for Mac, some for PC (depends on the language). Includes character codes for using accented or special characters for creating web pages.

Slavic Languages

Russification of Macintosh, University of Pittsburgh
Information about Cyrillic fonts, software, email, web for the Mac.
Slavic Computing, AATSEEL
A comprehensive resource for fonts and keyboard drivers for both PC and Mac.
Russian Software Database, University of Minnesota
Not a source for downloadable fonts, but a excellent resource for information and reviews of Russian software.
Russian Internet Relay Chat
Home pages and information about various Russian/CIS chat groups.

Near Eastern Languages

Arabic Computing Page
Fonts, software, and other computing information for PC.

Ancient Languages

CHC Shareware Archive, Oxford University
Fonts for Mac and PC.
Greek, Hebrew and Syraic Transliterated Fonts, Emory University
Fonts for transliteration of ancient languages for Mac, UNIX, and PC.

Asian Languages

Guide to Japanese Computing
Japanese fonts for Mac and PC.
Chinese Computing
Chinese fonts, mostly for PC.

Dictionaries

Other Sources for Language Fonts

Linguist's Software.
Linguist's Software
PO. Box 580
Edmonds, WA 98020-0580
Tel: 206-775-1130
Fax: 206-771-5911
Email: 75507.1157@compuserve.com
A wonderful source for both Mac and PC fonts for most languages. Most font packages are under $50.

Ecological Linguistic.
Ecological Linguisti
PO Box 15156
Washington, DC 20003
Tel: +1 (202) 547-7678
Email: ecoling@applelink.apple.com
Accent software
ACCENT online
Email and Web browsers for a variety of languages, including those using non-Latin characters.

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