Fonts in Windows 10

That's all interesting, but I'd been since many years ago confronted with this problem described below:

Display of fonts with glyphs of Unicode ranges from hex-10000 upwards.
(Example glyphs of Unicode ranges from hex-10b00 to hex-10b3f (Avestan)
and from hex-10b78 to hex-10b7f (Inscriptional Pahlavi))

They are not displayed correctly in Microsoft features like Word or managed in Keyboard Layout Creator?

In Unicode Code Unicode 6.0.0_6.1_6.2_6.3_7.0.0-8.0 there are many glyphs from ranges hex-10000 (Linear B Syllabary)
up to hex-e01ef (Variation Selectors Supplement).

As far as I can see the above mentioned problems are not yet solved neither in Windows 8.1
nor in the newest version of Windows 10.

What's the matter? Why these difficulties with these Unicode Code ranges?

Does Office 365 or Office 2016 support these above described Unicode ranges ?
E.g. Keyboards for Avestan, Inscriptional Pahlavi, Linear B Syllabary and so on?

Until today - since some years ago - I'm still waiting getting these problems being solved in Microsoft's features, but how and when?

Regards,
Ernst Tremel



     

Ernst:

It's not clear to me exactly where you are seeing problems. For several versions now, Windows has in general supported display of Unicode "supplementary-plane" characters (U+10000 - U+10FFFF, sometimes also referred to as "surrogate pairs").

I say, "in general", since there hasn't necessarily been support for all characters in this range in the fonts provided in Windows, or for complex script shaping. But support for more and more of Unicode has been added in every version. For details, see this article:

Script and Font Support in Windows

Here are some examples from Windows 8.1:

Supplementary-plane characters displayed in File Explorer:

Variation selector sequence and supplementary-plane characters in Notepad:

You mentioned Word, so here's an example in Word:

And you mentioned Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator. This app may not automatically select a suitable font for all character ranges, and you may need to select an appropriate font yourself (View > Font...). Here's an example showing Osmanya characters (U+10480 - U+104AF) after selecting the Ebrima font:

There may also be certain scenarios that are not explicitly supported. In particular, the command console (cmd.exe) has not been designed for broad support of Unicode.

If you could clarify specific cases in which you are not seeing supplementary-plane characters supported in Windows, that would help in identifying if there are issues that have gone undetected.

Avestan is not supported

I cannjot attache screenshots

My interest is in Myanmar which I note is not in your discussion.

I have added the following to Word 2016 (and it works with Word 2013):

I also use an external Myanmar keyboard or the onscreen one, but that above does combinations better (speed at my knowledge level is not an issue). The parts in red show that issue. Word uses Unicode 7.0 to form the syllables.

ကျ is made from 2 letters and Word 2016 handles the transition between roman fonts and Myanmar Text font well in Unicode. The problem is most Burmese use a pre Unicode system (eg Zawgyi-one). They type the vowel ေ before they type ကျ because it goes to the right of the ကျ. However in Unicode the ကျ is typed before the ေ because the ကျ sound comes before the ေ rhyme. The second last line was typed by a Burmese in her usual way so instead of forming ကျေ it formed ေကျ.

This means that in the Windows 10 Facebook App you end up with:

when a Burmese person has entered text the way most Burmese do. In Chrome on Windows 10 with the Myanmar Font Tools extension you get:

Windows 10 is correct as per Unicode 7.0 but it needs to be able to correct for the most common method Burmese enter Burmese as well.

(It will be interesting to see how others see the Myanmar Text on their computers. ကျ should look like an upside down curly w with an upside down mitre)

Avestan is not supported

Avestan is not a script that we support in-box in Windows 10. However, if you have your own fonts that support Unicode Avestan, they should work. For complex-script shaping, this is probably supported via the Universal Shaping Engine, though I have not confirmed that.

My interest is in Myanmar which I note is not in your discussion.

I have added the following to Word 2016 (and it works with Word 2013):

I also use an external Myanmar keyboard or the onscreen one, but that above does combinations better (speed at my knowledge level is not an issue). The parts in red show that issue. Word uses Unicode 7.0 to form the syllables.

ကျ is made from 2 letters and Word 2016 handles the transition between roman fonts and Myanmar Text font well in Unicode. The problem is most Burmese use a pre Unicode system (eg Zawgyi-one). They type the vowel ေ before they type ကျ because it goes to the right of the ကျ. However in Unicode the ကျ is typed before the ေ because the ကျ sound comes before the ေ rhyme. The second last line was typed by a Burmese in her usual way so instead of forming ကျေ it formed ေကျ.

This means that in the Windows 10 Facebook App you end up with:

when a Burmese person has entered text the way most Burmese do. In Chrome on Windows 10 with the Myanmar Font Tools extension you get:

Windows 10 is correct as per Unicode 7.0 but it needs to be able to correct for the most common method Burmese enter Burmese as well.

(It will be interesting to see how others see the Myanmar Text on their computers. ကျ should look like an upside down curly w with an upside down mitre)

Windows has supported Unicode Myanmar since Windows 8. (See Script and Font Support in Windows.)

As for the Zawgyi encoding, you can install the Zawgyi One font into Windows 10 and existing content created using Zawgyi encoding should display correctly, provided that font is selected. You can select the font in apps like Word or Notepad. Not all apps allow you to do that, however.

Windows has supported Unicode Myanmar since Windows 8. (See Script and Font Support in Windows.)

As for the Zawgyi encoding, you can install the Zawgyi One font into Windows 10 and existing content created using Zawgyi encoding should display correctly, provided that font is selected. You can select the font in apps like Word or Notepad. Not all apps allow you to do that, however.

Yes, Windows has supported Unicode Myanmarza since Windows 8 and before that in parts of Office but in different ways - (Why does Excel do it differently from Word?).

It is now better in Word 2016 than in previous Words.

Being able to use Zawgyi encoding in Word but not all apps is exactly what I said - People in Myanmar tend to use Zawgyi fonts and keyboards not Unicode fonts and keyboards. However, Windows is more aimed Unicode. Hence the Windows 10 Facebook App displays in Unicode even if the original was encoded in Zawgyi. I have Zawgyi-one on my computer, yet the App does not use this as it assumes the Myanmarza is Unicode encoded. Chrome can correct for this with the Add-in I mentioned but Windows 10 cannot. Chrome (with this extension) can display properly formed Unicode AND properly formed Zawgyi encoded Burmese but Windows 10 Apps, IE and Spartan can't. This is the issue.

Look at the two pictures from Facebook - one in the Windows 10 App, the other in Chrome. They are on the same PC and should look the same.

In my laptop I upgraded to windows 10 recently and now sinhala fonts are not support in windows 10, But it was supported in windows 7 before upgration. Please let me know how to fix this problem.

Thanks

Sanjaya

Hi, Sanjaya.

Sinhala is still supported on your system. The Nirmala UI font will be present on every Windows 10 system and it supports Sinhala. The Iskoola Pota font is now in an optional feature that can be installed.

If you add Sinhala to your language settings (which is equivalent to enabling a keyboard for Sinhala), then the Sinhala Supplemental Fonts package will be installed automatically.

If you already had a Sinhala keyboard enabled on your system before you upgraded, then our aim is that those settings are detected and the applicable optional font package is installed automatically during the upgrade. This works for Windows 8, but unfortunately the additional work needed for Windows 7 could not be completed in time.

If you did have a Sinhala keyboard enabled before the upgrade, then Sinhala should be in your user language profile on Windows 10. After some time has passed after the upgrade, the system should detect that the optional font package for Sinhala is missing and install it for you. This may take a couple of days. Again, we know it would be better if it was added during the upgrade from Windows 7, and are considering that gap.

If you don't have a Sinhala keyboard enabled and would want that, then you can go into your language settings and add that:

• From the Start menu, select Settings.
• Click Time & Language.
• Select Region & Language.
• Click the "+" icon next to Add a language.
• Browse to find Sinhala (සිංහල); if your Windows display language is English, the language names will be sorted by the English name.

If you do that, then the Sinhala Supplemental Fonts feature will be installed automatically.

If you don't want to add Sinhala to your profile or use a Sinhala keyboard but would like the additional Sinhala fonts; or, if you have Sinhala in your language profile already and don't want to wait for the system to install the font package, then you can install the font feature manually, as follows:

• From the Start menu, select Settings.
• Click System.
• Select Apps & features.
• Click Manage optional features.
• Click the "+" icon next to Add a feature.
• Scroll to find the Sinhala Supplemental Fonts; click on that, and then click Install.
• Click the back arrow in the upper left corner to see the list of installed optional features. You should see the Sinhala Supplemental Fonts feature as in progress of installing or already installed.

Note: optional features are installed from Windows Update, so you need to be online for the optional feature to be retrieved.

I hope this helps.

Peter