I don’t use old software, I use up to date versions of everything on a Mac. Very standard setup.
There’s a lot of links there. Maybe they do work in PDFs, but they certainly don’t work in the browser, and they don’t work when I click the txt files. Basically what you’re saying is that PDFs have a way to make this work. so what? Unless we are proposing that everything in the universe be PDF, this doesn’t really help. There should be a standard way to put custom characters anywhere that characters belong and have things “just work”. Clearly right now things don’t just work. And without even bothering to try I know if I tried cutting and pasting from those PDFs into somewhere else, it won’t work. — Chris On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 11:20 PM, Philippe Verdy <[email protected]> wrote: > Note that copy-pasting from a PDF to another document is very tricky, the > PDF format requires that embedded fonts use precise glyph naming > conventions to map glyphs back to characters, otherwise the Unicode > characters sequences associated to a glyph (or multiple glyphs if they are > ligatured or in complex layouts or with uncommon decorations, or rendered > on a non uniform background, or with glyphs filled with pattern, such as > labels over a photograph or cartographic map) will not be recognized. This > remark about PDFs is also applicable to PostScript documents. > Some PDF readers in that case attempt to perform some OCR (plus dictionary > lookups to fix mis readings) for common glyph forms, but will almost always > fail if the glyphs are too specific such as when they include swashes, > ligatures, or unknown scripts and scripts with complex layouts (such as the > invented script created by William for noting sentences with specific > "characters" with new glyphs, and a specific syntax and specific layout > rules. In other casesn the PDF reader will jsut put in the clipboard only a > bitmap for the selection, and it will be another software that will attempt > to interpret the bitmap with OCR. > The glyph naming conventions are documented in PDF specifications, but many > PDF creators do not follow these rules, and copying text from these PDFs > fails > 2015-06-03 15:03 GMT+02:00 Philippe Verdy <[email protected]>: >> This possibly fails because William possibly forgot to embed his font in >> the document itself (or Serif PagePlus forgets to do it when it creates the >> PDF document, and refuses to embed glyphs from the font that are bound to >> Unicode PUAs when it creates the embeded font). However no such problem >> when creating PDFs with MS Office, or via the Adobe Acrobat "printer" >> driver or other printer drivers generating PDF files, including Google >> Cloud Print). >> >> So this could be a misuse of Serif PagePlus when creating the PDF (I don't >> know this software, may be there are options set up that ells it to not >> embed fonts from a list of fonts that the recipient is supposed to have >> installed locally, to save storage space for the document, byt evoiding >> such embedding). Another reason may be that the font is marked as "not >> embeddable" within its exposed properties. >> >> Another reason may be that John tries to open the document with a software >> that does not handle embedded fonts, or that ignores it to use only the >> fonts preinstalled by John in his preferences. And in such case the result >> depends only on fonts preinstalled on his local system (that does not >> include the fonts created by William), or his software is setup to use >> exclusively a specific local "Unicode" font for all PUAs. >> >> (Softwares that behaved in this bad way was old versions of Internet >> Explorer, due to limitation of his text renderers, however this should not >> happen with PDFs, provided you have used a correct plugion version for >> displaying PDF in the browser : if this fails in the browser, download the >> document and view it with Adobe Reader instead of view the plugin: there >> are many PDF plugins on markets that do not support essential features and >> just built to display PDF containing scanned bitmaps, but with very poor >> support of text or vector graphics, or tuned specifically to change the >> document for another device or paper format). >> >> Without citing which softwares are used (and which PDF in the list does >> not load correctly), it is difficult to tell, but for me I have no problems >> with a few docs I saw created by William. So: >> >> NO F = NO FAIL for me. >> >> 2015-06-03 13:38 GMT+02:00 John <[email protected]>: >> >>> Yep, I clicked on your document and saw an empty square where your >>> character should be. >>> >>> F = FAIL. >>> >>> — >>> Chris >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 6:30 PM, William_J_G Overington < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Private Use Area in Use (from Tag characters and in-line graphics (from >>>> Tag characters)) >>>> >>>> >>>> >> That's not agreed upon. I'd say that the general agreement is that >>>> the private ranges are of limited usefulness for some very limited use >>>> cases (such as designing encodings for new scripts). >>>> >>>> >>>> > They are of limited usefulness precisely because it is pathologically >>>> hard to make use of them in their current state of technological evolution. >>>> If they were easy to make use of, people would be using them all the time. >>>> I’d bet good money that if you surveyed a lot of applications where custom >>>> characters are being used, they are not using private use ranges. Now why >>>> would that be? >>>> >>>> >>>> Actually, I have used Private Use Area characters a lot, and, once I had >>>> got used to them, I found them incredibly straightforward to use. >>>> >>>> >>>> I have made fonts that include Private Use Area encodings using the >>>> High-Logic FontCreator program and then used those fonts in Serif PagePlus, >>>> both to produce PDF documents and PNG graphics, as needed for my particular >>>> project at the time. >>>> >>>> >>>> For example, >>>> >>>> >>>> http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2957 >>>> >>>> >>>> http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2672 >>>> >>>> >>>> William Overington >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> 3 June 2015 >>>> >>>> >>> >>
