After my last two posts on the Sinhala iGoogle keyboard gadget and searching for Sinhala Unicode, I had a few questions on what Sinhala Unicode would look like, seeing that one needs to have a Sinhala Unicode font installed for it to render properly.
Each operating system seems to need a different number of steps to enable proper rendering.
- Windows XP: you need to install the Sinhala for Internet Explorer 6 patch to get IE working correctly. If you’re using Firefox, you should install the Firefox version supporting complex layout and right-to-left capability, to be able to view Sinhala correctly.
Screenshot: Firefox on XP (broken)
Screenshot: IE6.0 in XP (broken)
Screenshot: IE6.0 in XP with Sinhala Patch (working) - Windows Vista: this should work out of the box.
Screenshot: Firefox on Vista (working)
Screenshot: IE7.0 in Vista (working) - Linux: follow these instructions to enable correct rendering in Firefox. Konqueror seems to get slightly confused, rendering some of the text correctly, but having problems with certain fonts.
Here’s the way my name should look:
And here’s my name, as rendered incorrectly in most configurations:
Both LKLUG and Akshar Unicode have problems rendering the text, even in configurations where other fonts are able to do so fine.
Akshar Unicode
This font looks the most broken
DinaminaUniWeb
This has a rustic, old-fashioned feel to it.
KandyUnicode
This font might have been alright had it not been that heavy.
KaputaUnicode
Kaputa is a very clean, clear font without any unnecessary embelishments.
LKLUG
LKLUG is slightly broken, and has issues rendering some combinations. It also has a slightly old-fashioned feel to it.
Malithi Web
Clean, and easy to read.
Potha
Potha is a very nice font, getting the strokes just right, looking elegant, modern and uncluttered.
Iskoola Potha
So it comes as no surprise that Potha seems to have been cleaned up and included in Windows Vista by default, named Iskoola Potha. This font has the honour of being the best-looking Sinhalese Unicode font.
Sarasavi Unicode
Sarasavi came in as the second best Sinhalese font. The strokes on this font were a bit too heavy, making it more difficult to read, with some of the strokes being exaggerated.
What a nice alphabet! How many letters does it have? (assuming they’re letters rather than ideograms)
Hi there. Since Firefox 3 is now in Sinhala, I thought it was time to port a Windows OpenType font to the Mac, but I am not sure which one to choose. I looked for opinions on which fonts were nice for native speakers (I am English) and could only find yours blog 🙂
The Mac has a different font rendering engine from Windows, so the fonts look different (thicker/thinner strokes in places, different kerning and leading.
I have provided the same text for you to compare against here: http://web.nickshanks.com/typography/sinhala/
Please ignore the fact that the characters are in the wrong order and vowels are generally broken, as that is what I intend to fix once I’ve chosen a font to work on.
Also, do you know what the redistribution licenses are for these?