[multikulti-tech] Bengali help pages errors

[andrewc at vicnet.net.au]

Email = andrewc at vicnet.net.au
Message = Hi I was just looking at your site, and reading the Bengali help pages. There are a number of errors on the page.

On the Windows platform, Bengali unicode support requires a version of Uniscribe that supports the Bengali script, and it requires an OpenType font that contains appropriate opentype layout tables specifically designed for Bengali.

The only version of uniscribe that supports Bengali, is the version available with Office 2003. Office uses its own version of uniscribe, rather than the system version. To use Bengali iin other uniscribe aware programs it is necessary to unpdate the system version of uniscribe. The first available uniscribe update form Microsoft will be in the Windows XP Service Pack 2, allowing anyone using WinXPSP2 to correctly render Bengali Unicode, assuming they have a Bengali OpenType font.

Its possible to fudge and get IE and Mozilla Firefox correctly displaying Bengali Unicode, but meesing about with system DLLs is probably not advisable for the general user of your site.

The second problem on the page is that you recommend the use of the font "Arial Unicode MS" for Bengali. I know of two versions of this font, shipped in Microsoft products at different times. The more recent version (v1.0) has much more support than the earlier version. Neither version contains OpenType layout tables for Bengali and neither is suitable for displaying Bengali Unicode. 

>From my knowledge of Microsoft Typographies timeline, full support for Bengali can be expected in Longhorn when it is finally released.

Andrew

Andrew Cunningham
e-Diversity and Content Infrastructure
Open Road Language Solutions
Public Library Unit
Vicnet
State Library of Victoria
Australia

andrewc at vicnet.net.au
Name = Andrew Cunningham
Organisation = Public Libraries Unit, Vicnet, State Library of Victoria
SoupermailConf = ~/techcontact.con
Subject = Bengali help pages errors

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