[Oriya-group] Re: Conversion from OR_TTSarala to Unicode

[hrpansari at vsnl.net]

----- Original Message -----
From: Gora Mohanty <gora_mohanty at yahoo.co.in>
Date: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 10:57 pm

> Is this really true? Are the font files encrypted in
> some way? If so, they would be usable only in Srilipi.
> Are there no .ttf files? 

I was using srilipi since 1990 (then it was named SCRIPTMASTER), when the Gist-ISM not invented. It was the only product for Oriya DTP.

Afterwards Srilipi 3.0 fonts also could not be opened in any Font Editor's

Yesterday I have a discussion with Modular-Srilipi peoples. In latest Srilipi 5.x and DATABASE software named SOOCHIKA they provide ISCII import/export and Indic Sorting options also. But Srilipi 5.0's TTF font layout is different from earlier versions.

Now, they have realised the need of standards for compatibility, (when the E-patra - their Indic Emailing service invented and for popularising it and making compatible with others) and changed their policy and INSFOC draft standards hosted at TDIL site are also prepared by Modular-experts. 

For Hindi I tested Srilipi-4 to/fro conversion with Rupanter, It works fine but with much errors needs mannual editing. Oriya not present in it.
 
> If we have a legal copy of Srilipi, I am pretty sure
> that reverse engineering fonts for conversion is legal
> even if redistribution isn't. Complexity is not a
> problem, but differences between versions is. I did
> meet Modular Infotech's proprietor in Delhi, and he
> seemed to be open to the idea of converters. Maybe we
> can get them to give us the conversion maps.

As you realised, developing error-free converter is much tidious task. And we should not waste our scarce energy in this matter. It must be the headache of Modular and other Indic Software manufactures to provide ISCII/Unicode import/export. However, as I have informations they are also going to provide Unicode Export/import options with their coming versions having OT fonts also. 

Further, hundreds of font layouts are floated over, how much converters could we make? Perhaps it will be never-ending process.

I suggest that now we should concentrate for developing a perfect converter for that one font only, which we are bound to use for our Project Jobs. Or that one only, which is the best and we should use that only. (May be ORBW-TTMukta which I found the best or any other FONT which is available for free use).

Better, as suggested once by Mr. Nikhil Pattaniak, we may develop a better 8bit Eng-Oriya Bilingual Font of our own (basing on the glyphs of Kalinga) and an Open-source plateform independed IME for it. This will help Oriya computing at great extent. This may be done in 15 days (daily one hours only if we and some experts work jointly.)

As for coming 5 years, the use of 7bit/8bit fonts will be going on. So, I prefer to follow for early stadardisation of 8bit font encodings. Better, if we design a 8bit Oriya font layout for DRAFT STANDARD which may be submitted to TDIL for inclusion in "http://www.tdil.mit.gov.in/insfoc.pdf" as presently this has only Devanagari, Gujrati, Panjabi and Malyalam, Oriya still not there.

I hope, if you and others interested, may meet me at my office for One hour only (at prefixed time after office hours), we may design such a DRAFT STANDARD.

With regards.

Hariram Pansari
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