RE: script or block detection needed for Unicode fonts

[Murray Sargent]

Title: Re: script or block detection needed for Unicode fonts

John Jenkins wrote: "This just seems wildly inefficient to me, but then I'm coming from an OS where this isn't done.  The app doesn't keep track of whether or not a particular font can draw a particular character; that's handled at display time.  If a particular font doesn't handle a particular character, then a fallback mechanism is invoked by the system, which caches the necessary data.  I really don't see why an application needs to check every character as it reads in a file to make sure it can be drawn with the set font." Sigh. If I only had an OS like that to work with! There is the ransom-note effect though. Do you try to match the desired font characteristics? I should note that Windows XP does have limited "font linking" support as well, which works with system fonts. Unfortunately, system fonts have limited typographical appeal, so the missing-character/glyph problem is usually the responsibility of the application. Murray