[Tugindia] [Duvvuri Venu Gopal] Some ideas for Indian TeX

[Radhakrishnan CV]

>>>>> "SV" == S venkataraman <svenkat@ignou.ac.in> writes:

    SV> From the description of omega, I think the best hope for
    SV> multilingual type setting is omega. As CVR pointed out in
    SV> response to one of my earlier messages, it is up to us to make
    SV> the effort.  As of now there is very little material available
    SV> on omega.  It probably needs some deeper understanding of
    SV> plain tex, not just latex.  I am not sure if I have it.  It
    SV> was one of the topics of the tutorial sessions in tug2002.
    SV> That's why I was interested in the proceedings.  If it is not
    SV> very expensive I would like to buy the proceedings.

We'd requested in this list if anyone needed the preprints of the
papers of TUG2002 since we had a few copies left, did you turn
up? It is all exhausted now.

    SV> From when can I buy it? How much does it cost?

Proceedings will be published as a special issue of TUGBoat by TUG.  I
guess you can order single copy of it. However, TUGIndia are now
talking to TUG office on the possibility of releasing it as a separate
volume which could be bought by interested people, instead of hoarding
it into an issue of TUGBoat which circulates in a private space of the
members only.
 
    SV> It is now possible to typeset in Greek(?)  which is spoken by
    SV> fewer people than, say, Hindi.  

Omega now typesets Hindi, that was the presentation of John Plaice in
TUG2002. His article describes in detail about the Omega translation
process (OTP) very well.

    SV> The encoding is the biggest bugbear.  

Why should we go for special encodings, when the world is moving
towards Unicode? If there are bugs in Unicode for a particular Indic
script, why not we talk to Unicode Consortium to make it fixed?

    SV> There was a conference in Singapore where the use of computers
    SV> for tamil was discussed.  They have come up with an
    SV> inscription which will be used as the standard.  I do not know
    SV> if it is compatible with inscript!

Standards that move away from open global standards can result only
isolation. 

    Venu> · At present only one type face is available for each
    Venu> language. There is a need to create different styles of
    Venu> fonts (a minimum of 5 for each language with similar looking
    Venu> fonts in other Indian languages).

    SV> Actually, one can use true type fonts in latex, atleast in
    SV> MIKTEX.  

It is trivial to convert a true type into type 1.

    SV> So, there is actually a large collection of fonts out there.
    SV> Of course, it needs some work.  There is a link from the
    SV> miktex home page to an article that explains how.  I was able
    SV> to use english true type fonts in latex from the information
    SV> given there.  I suppose the same information with some
    SV> modification for true type fonts in other languages.  Of
    SV> course, one has to worry about the copyright problems.  

Akruti of Bombay (a text processing solutions provider) are going to
release 100 fonts in Indian scripts under GNU GPL. People can make use
of these fonts, remap them, create TeX font metrics and font definition
files so that all these fonts can be made use of in TeX.

    SV> We can do this only with free true type fonts.  The fonts made
    SV> available by magazines in their web pages are subject to
    SV> copyright restrictions.  I know there are tamil true type
    SV> fonts that can be freely used. Again, I haven't found time to
    SV> try this out!  

Try to spare half an hour a day or three hours per week, you can do
wonders in this world. If not, the whole life will go like this
apparently preoccupied, with lots of projects dear to heart on one
hand and the frustration of not being able to do anything on the other
hand. Do you want to remain frustrated throughout?

    SV> Will this work in LINUX? Only the linux experts can tell?

Of course.

    Venu> · The main task is popularization of TeX. It is interlinked
    Venu> with the ability of TeX to typeset documents in Indian
    Venu> languages. It is essential because people should not find it
    Venu> impossible to do something in TeX due to which they have to
    Venu> switch for other softwares.

    SV> 	Absolutely!  I do not know the exact statistics.  My gut
    SV> feeling is that more and more people are empowered by
    SV> tex/latex.  The effect Indian tex would be the same.


-- 
Radhakrishnan