Support for Devanagari script in LaTeX

निरंजन niranjanvikastambe at gmail.com
Tue Dec 3 07:48:07 CET 2019


Hello all,

Let me begin with the primary declaration that I've a very little knowledge
of how TeX works, I have some requests regarding the compiler. Please
correct me if I have understood something wrong.

This <http://www.tug.org/FontCatalogue/> is a link which I found for LaTeX
fonts. This collection does not include Devanagari fonts. Devanagari is a
script which has dedicated Unicode numbers which can be found here
<https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf>. I've attached three zip files
namely Yashovenu, Yashomudra and Jaini. Yashovenu is a free and open source
font (project link <https://github.com/RajyaMarathiVikasSanstha/Yashovenu>)
which is Sans Serif by style. Yashomudra is the serif version of the same
font. No need to mention that it is also free and open source (project link
<https://github.com/RajyaMarathiVikasSanstha/Yashomudra>). Both of these
fonts are available in all the weights. Jaini is an old style Devanagari
font (again open source, this <https://github.com/EkType/Jaini> is the
project link). Unfortunately this font is not available in all the weights,
but it contains one variant named Jaini-Purva which is an even older style
of Devanagari script.

The point of mentioning all of this is Devanagari is a completely
computer-friendly script. Is it possible to include at least these four
fonts in the TeXLive distribution as the representatives of Devanagari
script? The purpose would be a step towards localization of LaTeX project.
Right now if Devanagari is to be used in LaTeX, one has to load fontspec or
polyglossia or other packages like these and compile the document with
XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX. Consider this as a feature request for making PdfLaTeX
also able to compile Devanagari characters in input and giving output in
some default Devanagari fonts. (Preferably the attached one.) My idea would
be to have simple commands like *\fontstyle* with following options of
(compulsory) arguments -

   1. "\sansserif" - (Yashovenu)
   2. "\serif" - (Yashomudra)
   3. "\olddeva" - (Jaini)
   4. "\traditionaldeva - (Jaini Purva)

Please let me know if I can help you in any ways. If there are some
technical (or TeXnical) problems, please make me aware of the same. I would
be very happy to work for this small step of localization if needed.

Waiting for your response.

Regards,
Niranjan
Department of Linguistics,
University of Mumbai.
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