He probably wants to say that Windows itself cannot use webfonts for its own display or in applications. Unlike what you can do online within browsers. One solution: use online applications that can deliver webfonts. But why cannot applications instaleld locally use as well webfonts (that will be managed in a cache, like in browser, and downloaded and installed on demand, from a web domain name approved by the application? This way WinWord (just an example) running locally would have the same fonts as those you can have online.
Time to extend the local store in Windows\\Fonts, to include support for approved webfont providers (in that case Windows\Fonts may be restricted by application, and would use a cache separate from local fonts, these fonts would also be updated more easily). You could also have links to webfont providers in your own organization (useful for news agencies or web design agencies), or users would also add an open webfonts provider online, and there would also be font sellers offering some fonts or fonts with limitations (e.g. only ASCII and some other Latin1 punctuation), than those you could get with a subscription or payment from the same provider. Of course the providers should be secured. Suppose you receive a document from someone, and you don't have the fonts installed, the webfonts providers would include a search engine and would try to locate it. it would install that font in the local cache. The document would become immediately usable, witjout having to embed the font itself in every doc of a collection from the same source. 2013/7/11 Peter Constable <[email protected]> > It's not clear to me what you're asking, or why you are asserting that > "there is no way to show Unicode contents on Windows". All text display in > Windows uses Unicode. To my knowledge, Windows 8 has built-in text display > support that covers more of Unicode than any other widely-available OS, and > it is being extended in Windows 8.1, available in preview now. > > Scripts supported in Windows 8.1 include: > - Europe & Mideast scripts: Arabic, Armenian, Cyrillic, Georgian, Greek, > Hebrew, Latin, Syriac > - East / North Asian scripts: Han, Hiragana, Katakana, Korean (including > Old Hangul conjoining jamo), Lisu, Mongolian, Yi > - South Asian scripts: Bangla, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, > Malayalam, Odia, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, Thaana, Tibetan > - Southeast Asian scripts: Buginese, Javanese, Khmer, Lao, Myanmar, New > Tai Lue, Ol Chiki, Sora Sompeng, Tai Le, Thai > - African scripts: Ethiopic, N'Ko, Osmanya, Tifinagh, Vai > - North American scripts: Canadian Syllabics, Cherokee, Deseret > - Archaic scripts (various regions): Coptic, Glagolitic, Gothic, Meroitic > Cursive, Ogham, Old Italic, Orkhon, Phags-pa, Runic > - Other: Braille, broad symbol coverage (including color emoji font > support) > > Many people running older versions of Windows aren't aware of the level of > Unicode support. You can find details spanning versions since Windows 2000 > here: > > http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb688099.aspx > > > For simple scripts that do not require shaping that are not yet supported, > if you have the font and can select the font in your app, then text in > those scripts can be displayed. Of course, we don't have built-in font > fallback for such scripts. > > > Peter > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Ilya Zakharevich > Sent: July 9, 2013 10:38 PM > To: Unicode Discussion > Subject: Re: Ways to show Unicode contents on Windows? > > On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 05:15:51AM +0000, Murray Sargent wrote: > > A bulk approach works. The hyperlink gives full instructions on how to > set up the fonts. You can customize it by changing the fonts listed in > default.cfl. > > Thanks. > > —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— > > BTW, Andrew Cunningham noted in PM that my silent assumption that “font > supporting given characters” implies simple-rendering is > wrong: Graphite fonts have an embedded renderer. > > So it makes sense to explicitly augment my restrictions to: > > Suppose that the given Unicode characters are supported by an > OpenType font available on the system; > > The text does not require complex rendering. > > Are are any Windows applications designed for use by “population at large” > which support rendering such Unicode text? By default? By suitable tuneup > within limits of a D-grade sophomore student? Are there any web browsers > (except FF — see for-FF recipes in my OP) which can be tuned in this way? > > (I distrubute solutions to math HW as a Unicode text nowadays. ;-) > > Thanks, > Ilya > > > > > >
