REDNESS

[Elbrecht]

Hi -

the OS X text engine displays the Last Resort font for glyphs not found in ANY font. What if glyphs not being available happen to be missing in a still existing font? Some fonts grow over time - old versions don't cover the repertoire of newer ones. Or as just happened to me: somebody privately adds glyphs to HIS standard font - but I happen to have the standard version of this font only and would like to catch the missing glyphs displayed with the help of the Last Resort font. This would be much more easily done WITH ALL LAST RESORT CHARACTERS DISPLAYED IN RED right away. I know in case of missing glyphs the font used is listed RED in Character Palette - I would like to have this REDNESS in the document itself for any Last Resort glyph as well - default and/or option!

HE

[Groucho]

Also, missing characters should be searchable.

Greetings, Henry.

[martin]

I know in case of missing glyphs the font used is listed RED in Character Palette - I would like to have this REDNESS in the document itself for any Last Resort glyph as well - default and/or option!

You can't turn it on just for characters using Apple's "Last Resort" font, but NWP does have an option to highlight any text where font substitution occurs, using any color of your choice. The setting is in the Appearance preference pane, under "Customizable Colors", in the "Marked Text" category. You can set "Font substituted" (and "Font missing" if you like).

Also, missing characters should be searchable

Not quite a direct search, but you can use Kino's excellent Select By Font macro. It lists all fonts used in the document, and denotes missing and substituted ones.

[Elbrecht]

Well Martin -

that's the status quo - but what the hack is the last resort font for, if you can't color/highlight it's appearance. When I have already found the missing glyph - there is just no need for poping it up anymore for me...

Lost HE

[martin]

I'm not sure I understand Elbrecht. If you turn on NWP's "font substituted" highlighting, that will color any places where the "Last Resort" font is used for display because the applied font did not contain the character and font substitution occurred. Isn't that what you wanted to do: highlight any places where the Last Resort font had to be used, so you can easily spot them? That setting would also highlight any other text where font substitution occurred, even if Last Resort was not involved, but I think you would also find that useful, though I could be wrong.

[Elbrecht]

Well Martin -

highlight is not color, you can't select all and you have no stats - ...
How to search or automate, I wonder?

I've been just through it
HE

[martin]

Ah, I see what you mean now. The highlighting doesn't help because you don't know where in the document it occurs, and you can't search for it directly because it is merely a display phenomenon, not a proper attribute.

I'd suggest you use Kino's macro and have it select all text using the LastResort font. Because the macro selects all such text at once, you can then mark it however you choose, eg: with a color attribute, bookmarks, etc.

[Elbrecht]

Well Martin -

it's all because I am not used to walk on Arabic dunes, maybe - one very last section colored your way was declared not do be done in Times New Roman - no wonder it's written Arabic to me - but the font menu hints at Al Bayan & Code2000. I am just not used to this - but have to help a friend make friends with Nisus Writer Pro - somehow...

We got it done in the end
HE

PS: The problem were TITUS U+F000 through U+F02F specials not coming through in Word and Nisus Writer Pro - OpenOffice has no problem with it - looks like Nisus Writer blocks the inofficial Microsoft Corporate Use Area!?!

[martin]

I'm glad you got it working somehow...

PS: The problem were TITUS U+F000 through U+F02F specials not coming through in Word and Nisus Writer Pro - OpenOffice has no problem with it - looks like Nisus Writer blocks the inofficial Microsoft Corporate Use Area!?!

We don't block those special characters (the so called Private Use Area), and they are not specific to Microsoft. Any font/application can use those characters for whatever purpose they choose. However, if you do not use exactly the same font and/or application, there's no guarantee that your characters will make any sense.

Could you send me an example file that doesn't open/display properly in NWP? I'll make sure there's no error in our import. Thanks!

[Elbrecht]

Hi Martin -

the file concerned is multi-lingual mediterrean - it's done in Microsoft Sans Serif with TITUSCyberbitBasic, Al Bayan, Century & Code2000 inserts. The TITUS is used - for whatever reason - for superscripts F000 throu F02F, but these show for whatever reason in OpenOffice only - rather misplaced to be true.

I was of the opion to use E000 through EFFF only for TITUS years ago, because Microsoft is used to handle intern F000 through F0FF - as does Adobe handle F600 through F7FF and Apple handles F800 through F8FF. That's why I call F000 through F8FF the Corporate Use Area up against the Private Use Area E000 through EFFF. Officially all is for Private Use - because it's not Part of the Unicode Standard - but you know in fact all animals are equal, especially the big ones. I guess Apple's text engine does the job, i.e. doesn't the job concerned.

So no wonder Microsoft Word does not handle the TITUS characters F000 through F0FF - empty rectangles only. Nisus offers Last Resort font instead - only OpenOffice confronts the beast and [mis-]places the superscripts!

The file is not with me anymore and still pre-press anyway, but the case could be easily shown again...

HE

[Kino]

Sound strange. My copy of NWP has no difficulty in displaying characters from U+F000 to U+F100 in the latest version of TITUSCBZ.TTF.

TitusFont.zip

(66.54 KiB) Downloaded 524 times

[Elbrecht]

HI Kino -

it's getting stranger all the way. I installed fresh TITUS font - but same problem still. OpenOffice is fine - Word 2004, Nisus Writer Pro 1.4.1 and even latest Safari are blocked on my machine/s. Four glyphs only for me of F000 thru F0FF: just F000, F004, F005 & F0E8. Anyone to test for me?

http://elbrecht.com/utf8site/TITUS/F0240.htm
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/un ... tableUF000

note: my url got font tag TITUS; but titus url doesn't - you have to select TITUS as standard font in Safari.

Thanks HE

[Kino]

For your NWP problem, I’d like to recommend you to try some trouble shootings, e.g. clear font cache. As to Safari, it is a bad idea to use a combining character solely, without a base character. Try the attached version.

F0240a_htm.zip

(1.88 KiB) Downloaded 515 times

Safari.png (39.75 KiB) Viewed 10582 times

[Elbrecht]

Hi Kino -

strangeness gone - I guess. Font Cache was not the problem, cleaning didn't change anything. But your second thought is the answer. My Corporate Use html F000 thru F08F is copied from TITUS - and I now guess the author of the RTF concerned copied therefrom again. Copy from your attached html instead and the superscripts show in Nisus Writer as well. What a hack - I never touched Corporate Use Area and didn't mind my own html source. But whatever you/me/TITUS publish in the net falls back on your shoulders some time to come. What a strange goal!

Thanks HE

PS: OpenOffice does superscripts WITHOUT base letters, but with width=zero, they end somewhere else in the back. In the end it's all a question of doing a good font for this - a linguist had to tell how to place the superscripts and I could think of a pretty well solution for a font - but it's not my job up to now: I only hope the publisher will take care...