Difference between revisions of "Fonts"

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(→‎Malayalam: The Malayalam Unicode Font [http://malayalam.changathi.com/Fonts.aspx Anjali Old Lipi])
m (Reverted edits by David Haslam (talk) to last revision by Niccarter)
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== Font Technology ==
 
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There are three major smart-font technologies in common use:
 
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueType TrueType]
 
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenType OpenType]
 
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite_%28SIL%29 Graphite]
 
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SIL Graphite is open source. It has been recently built in to several major applications such as Firefox and Thunderbird.
 
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To learn more about complex fonts, a good place to start is in SIL's [http://scripts.sil.org/Welcome Non-Roman Script Initiative] pages.
 
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=== Font subsets for mobile technology ===
 
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Please refer to [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=FontSubsets Font Subsets] - a new initiative at SIL.
 
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:SIL's Non-Roman Script Initiative has created very comprehensive fonts for Latin and Cyrillic character sets. These are very large fonts that cover just about every need we know about in the Latin and Cyrillic world. Now, as we move into the age of mobile phone and web usage, everyone wants fonts that are small and compact. Our fonts are over a megabyte each and that is considered way too big for mobile phone usage.
 
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:We are now considering ways to subset our fonts. Current commercial font subsetting schemes remove the smart font information from a font when it subsets a font. While this may be acceptable for majority languages, we consider this unacceptable as so many languages in the world require smart diacritic positioning above and/or below base characters. ...
 
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== Fonts ==
 
== Fonts ==
  
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These are some suggested fonts for use with SWORD tools.  Any of these work with either Linux or Windows tools, and probably Macs as well, though certain fonts work better with different tools.  They're TrueType or OpenType fonts, which means that usually just copying *.ttf to the right place makes them available, and that's necessary only if you don't have some sort of package manager or font installer to do it for you.
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These are some suggested fonts for use with SWORD tools.  Any of these work with either Linux or Windows tools, and probably Macs as well, though certain fonts work better with different tools.  They're TrueType fonts, which means that usually just copying *.ttf to the right place makes them available, and that's necessary only if you don't have some sort of package manager or font installer to do it for you.
  
 
=== All-Purpose ===
 
=== All-Purpose ===
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:A derivative of the above Free Serif typeface, [http://www.flaez.ch/freeidg.html FreeIdgSerif], was designed for Indo-Eurpoeanists, but has wide character coverage of use to Bible users.
 
:A derivative of the above Free Serif typeface, [http://www.flaez.ch/freeidg.html FreeIdgSerif], was designed for Indo-Eurpoeanists, but has wide character coverage of use to Bible users.
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[http://unifoundry.com/unifont.html GNU Unifont Glyphs] from [http://unifoundry.com/ Uni''foundry''.com]. This page contains the latest release of the GNU Unifont, with glyphs for every printable code point in the Unicode 5.1 Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). It was the intention of the site owner to provide an update for Unicode 5.2 coverage, which added almost 1000 newly assigned code points.
 
  
 
[http://linuxlibertine.sf.net Linux Libertine] is a very pretty typeface that provides quality character sets for all of Latin, Hebrew, and Greek, which makes it especially useful for commentaries that use all three. While it is designed for Linux, it works quite well under Windows, as a display typeface for SWORD tools.
 
[http://linuxlibertine.sf.net Linux Libertine] is a very pretty typeface that provides quality character sets for all of Latin, Hebrew, and Greek, which makes it especially useful for commentaries that use all three. While it is designed for Linux, it works quite well under Windows, as a display typeface for SWORD tools.
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There is quite a selection of other fonts available from SIL.  Visit [http://scripts.sil.org SIL] and look around, but the Charis SIL and Doulos SIL typefaces, in particular were designed with fairly broad coverage in mind.
 
There is quite a selection of other fonts available from SIL.  Visit [http://scripts.sil.org SIL] and look around, but the Charis SIL and Doulos SIL typefaces, in particular were designed with fairly broad coverage in mind.
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[http://sourceforge.net/projects/code2000/ Code2000] &ndash; now open source -- aims at complete coverage of the Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) ''aka'' Plane 0. See also the freeware fonts [http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/code2001.html Code2001] and [http://www.fonts2u.com/code2002.font Code2002], which are Plane 1 and Plane 2 fonts, respectively.<ref>Some Unicode fonts do not render a zero width space correctly. Code2000 displays some space to the left of the codepoint. cf. Tahoma displays them correctly (invisible). Bear this in mind when selecting the font directive for a Sword module in the conf file. </ref>
 
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[https://www.google.com/get/noto/ Google Noto Fonts] &ndash; Google has been developing a font family called Noto, which aims to support all languages with a harmonious look and feel. All Noto fonts are now licensed under OFL.
 
  
 
[http://junicode.sourceforge.net/ Junicode] (short for Junius-Unicode) is a Unicode font for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medievalism medievalists].
 
[http://junicode.sourceforge.net/ Junicode] (short for Junius-Unicode) is a Unicode font for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medievalism medievalists].
  
 
[http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/Symbola601.zip Symbola] is a free font in George Douros' collection of [http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/ Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts] with support for the new characters in [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/version/6.0/ Unicode 6.0].
 
[http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/Symbola601.zip Symbola] is a free font in George Douros' collection of [http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/ Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts] with support for the new characters in [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/version/6.0/ Unicode 6.0].
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[http://www.quivira-font.com/ Quivira] is a free Unicode font in the OpenType format which is supported by every usual office program or printer. Unicode font means it contains more than the standard characters for some western European languages. Quivira provides a large character repertoire, so that texts containing rather unusual characters can be rendered pleasingly.
 
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[http://scholarsfonts.net/ Fonts for Scholars] (Latin, Germanic Languages, Greek, Hebrew and Linguistics) &ndash; Materials compiled by David J. Perry  Rye High School, Rye, New York. Download the Unicode font called '''Cardo''' from this site, released under the SIL Open Font License.<ref>Having tried this font in Xiphos 3.2.0 for Windows, I found that it required lines double spacing.</ref>
 
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'''Note:'''
 
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<references />
 
  
 
=== Particular languages ===
 
=== Particular languages ===
 
For particular requirements on languages not listed here, it is generally useful to visit the [http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia] page for the relevant alphabet or script.
 
For particular requirements on languages not listed here, it is generally useful to visit the [http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia] page for the relevant alphabet or script.
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For Biblical languages, it is advisable to visit [http://www.sbl-site.org/educational/biblicalfonts.aspx SBL Educational Resources].
 
  
 
==== Greek ====
 
==== Greek ====
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"Ezra SIL" is SIL's best font for Hebrew and works very well in most SWORD front-ends. [http://scripts.sil.org/EzraSIL_Home]
 
"Ezra SIL" is SIL's best font for Hebrew and works very well in most SWORD front-ends. [http://scripts.sil.org/EzraSIL_Home]
  
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The "SBL Hebrew" font displays some Hebrew points more accurately. [http://www.sbl-site.org/educational/biblicalfonts.aspx] <br>
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For BibleTime, the best Hebrew fonts are the Culmus fonts, particularly the Frank Ruehl CLM or Drugulin CLM. Many Linux distributions have a Culmus fonts package (Mandriva calls it fonts-type1-hebrew). If your distribution doesn't have this package, you may check out the Culmus Project site [http://culmus.sourceforge.net/] and follow this link [http://www.xslf.com/media/culmus-fonts/culmus-0.101-true-type.zip] to a truetype download.
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NB. Unicode normalization can easily break Biblical Hebrew text. See on page 9 in the [http://www.sbl-site.org/Fonts/SBLHebrewUserManual1.5x.pdf SBL Hebrew Font User Manual].
 
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For BibleTime, the best Hebrew fonts are the Culmus fonts, particularly the Frank Ruehl CLM or Drugulin CLM. Many Linux distributions have a Culmus fonts package (Mandriva calls it fonts-type1-hebrew). If your distribution doesn't have this package, you may check out the Culmus Project site [http://culmus.sourceforge.net/].
 
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See also [http://www.mechon-mamre.org/tech.htm Hebrew Support for Your Browser] at the Mechon Mamre website. For front-ends that use a browser (or browser engine) to display Bible text (e.g. FireBible), this may be relevant if you have a problem displaying Hebrew vowels and/or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantillation cantillation] marks.
 
  
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Another resource of free/libre and open source Hebrew fonts is [http://opensiddur.org/2010/07/unicode-compliant-and-open-source-licensed-hebrew-fonts/ The Open Siddur Project].
+
See also [http://www.mechon-mamre.org/tech.htm Hebrew Support for Your Browser] at the Mechon Mamre website. For front-ends that use a browser (or browser engine) to display Bible text (e.g. FireBible), this may be relevant if you have a problem displaying Hebrew vowels and/or cantillation marks.
  
 
==== Vietnamese ====
 
==== Vietnamese ====
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Apart from MS Arial, which is mentioned above as a good all round font, the prettiest free font is probably Nazli, available from Farsiweb and part of many Linux repositories.
 
Apart from MS Arial, which is mentioned above as a good all round font, the prettiest free font is probably Nazli, available from Farsiweb and part of many Linux repositories.
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See also [http://wiki.irmug.org/index.php/X_Series_2 X Series 2 fonts] &ndash; freely available fonts extended to support Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Pashto, Dari, Uzbek, Kurdish, Uighur, old Turkish (Ottoman) and modern Turkish (Roman).
 
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In the same region, the Azeri module actually specifies the Nazli font.  This can be downloaded from [http://cooltext.com/Download-Font-Nazli here].
 
  
 
==== Amharic ====
 
==== Amharic ====
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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amharic_language Amharic] is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. The recommended TrueType font for viewing the [http://www.bible.org/foreign/amharic/ Amharic Bible] is called '''GF Zemen Unicode'''. For further Amharic Unicode resources, see [http://mahder.com/the-ethiopic-unicode-resource-page-amharic-fonts.html]. Windows 7 comes preloaded with a font called '''Nyala Regular''' designed for Ethiopic. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_fonts]. See also [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=AbyssinicaSIL Abyssinica SIL], which is a Graphite font released under the SIL Open Font License (OFL).
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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amharic_language Amharic] is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. The recommended TrueType font for viewing the [http://www.bible.org/foreign/amharic/ Amharic Bible] is called '''GF Zemen Unicode'''. For further Amharic Unicode resources, see [http://mahder.com/the-ethiopic-unicode-resource-page-amharic-fonts.html].
  
 
==== Coptic ====
 
==== Coptic ====
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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_language Coptic] is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century. Several Unicode fonts include coverage of Coptic. [http://apagreekkeys.org/NAUdownload.html New Athena Unicode] is one of them. For further Coptic Unicode resources, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_alphabet#External_links] and [http://www.moheb.de/unicode_coptic_fonts.html]. See also [http://www.copticchurch.net/coptic_fonts/] and [http://st-takla.org/Download-Software-Free/Coptic_Downloads_Ta7mil___Christian_&_Coptic_Free-Fonts_05.html]. Coptic readers prefer glyphs to be like those of the '''New Athanasius Coptic Font''' as it's similar to many printed Coptic books, and so easier to read.
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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_language Coptic] is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century. Several Unicode fonts include coverage of Coptic. '''New Athena Unicode''' is one of them. For further Coptic Unicode resources, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_alphabet#External_links] and [http://www.moheb.de/unicode_coptic_fonts.html].
  
 
==== Kabyle ====
 
==== Kabyle ====
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==== Burmese/Myanmar ====
 
==== Burmese/Myanmar ====
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SIL Padauk is an excellent font [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=Padauk]. [http://sourceforge.net/projects/code2000/ Code2000] may be preferred. See also the fonts and keyboard entry methods mentioned in [http://www.myanmarbible.com/bible/unicodeApplications.html]. See also the Win Myanmar Typeset package at [http://winmyanmar.tripod.com/typeset.htm].
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SIL Padauk is an excellent font [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=Padauk]. See also the fonts and keyboard entry methods mentioned in [http://www.myanmarbible.com/bible/unicodeApplications.html].
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==== Karen ====
 
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Several fonts for Karen languages are available to download from the [http://ktwg.org/karen_fonts.html Karen Teacher Working Group] website. Sgaw Karen and Pwo Karen are based on the Burmese script, but have some extra characters not found in the Burmese alphabet. See also [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_languages].
 
  
 
==== Indian languages ====
 
==== Indian languages ====
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* '''BarahaIME''' &ndash; Input Method Editor for Indian languages  
 
* '''BarahaIME''' &ndash; Input Method Editor for Indian languages  
 
* '''Baraha TrueType Fonts''' for various Indian languages (released under GPL)
 
* '''Baraha TrueType Fonts''' for various Indian languages (released under GPL)
−
 
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===== Devanagari =====
 
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* Windows 7 uses Aparajita as the default font for Devanagari, though this is probably not redistributable.
 
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* [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=AnnapurnaSIL Annapurna SIL] is a Graphite font produced by SIL, released under the SIL Open Font License (OFL) which permits website use.<br>Annapurna SIL is cleaner and crisper in appearance than Aparajita.
 
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===== Malayalam =====
 
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* The Malayalam Unicode Font [http://malayalam.changathi.com/Fonts.aspx Anjali Old Lipi] is worth considering.
 
  
 
==== Tibetan ====
 
==== Tibetan ====
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* A Unicode OpenType font called '''Tibetan Machine Uni''' is available under GPL license.[http://www.thlib.org/tools/#wiki=/access/wiki/site/26a34146-33a6-48ce-001e-f16ce7908a6a/tibetan%20machine%20uni.html]  
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* A Unicode OpenType font called '''Tibetan Machine Uni''' is available under GPL license.[http://www.thlib.org/tools/#wiki=/access/wiki/site/26a34146-33a6-48ce-001e-f16ce7908a6a/tibetan%20machine%20uni.html]
  
 
* A Unicode OpenType font called '''Sambhota Ededris''' is well advanced in development, though at present it is not available for public purchase. [https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/access/wiki/site/26a34146-33a6-48ce-001e-f16ce7908a6a/tibetan%20fonts.html]
 
* A Unicode OpenType font called '''Sambhota Ededris''' is well advanced in development, though at present it is not available for public purchase. [https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/access/wiki/site/26a34146-33a6-48ce-001e-f16ce7908a6a/tibetan%20fonts.html]
  
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* A copyrighted Unicode font called '''TCRC Youtso Unicode Font for Tibetan''' is available from [http://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=entry_detail&uid=pgdpslh69t]. This font is provided by the Tibetan Computer Resource Centre (TCRC), an affiliate of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in Dharamsala (India). Please note that the font is NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION! It's listed here as an interim option for Bible translators needing to test their privately built modules on any platform in which this font can be installed.
+
==== Nunavut ====
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* Special provision should be made when normalizing Tibetan characters in Unicode. See [http://www.thlib.org/tools/scripts/wiki/encoding%20model%20of%20the%20tibetan%20script%20in%20the%20ucs.html#CharacterOrder Encoding Model of the Tibetan Script in the UCS].
 
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==== Nunavut / Inuktitut ====
 
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Detailed recommendations are given by the Government of Nunavut in its [http://www.gov.nu.ca/en/Fonts.aspx Inuktitut fonts and tools] page.
 
−
 
 
 
With only 0.01 people per square kilometer of land, Nunavut is one of the least populated regions in the world. And yet it has four official languages: English, French, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun. For this reason, the government of Nunavut adopted a clean sans-serif font called '''Pigiarniq''' (designed by Tiro Typeworks) that enables its people to use all four languages in a uniform manner. The result is a professional-looking free font family. [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/22/the-beauty-of-typography-writing-systems-and-calligraphy-part-2/]
 
With only 0.01 people per square kilometer of land, Nunavut is one of the least populated regions in the world. And yet it has four official languages: English, French, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun. For this reason, the government of Nunavut adopted a clean sans-serif font called '''Pigiarniq''' (designed by Tiro Typeworks) that enables its people to use all four languages in a uniform manner. The result is a professional-looking free font family. [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/22/the-beauty-of-typography-writing-systems-and-calligraphy-part-2/]
 
* [http://www.gov.nu.ca/english/font/ Pigiarniq]
 
* [http://www.gov.nu.ca/english/font/ Pigiarniq]
−
 
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==== Khmer ====
 
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A family of Khmer fonts called Antioch is available from [http://www.asiaforjesus.org/ Words of Life Ministries]. ''Email Steve Hyde to request''.
 
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The [http://www.sbbic.org/ Society for Better Books in Cambodia] also has some free Unicode fonts for Khmer script.
 
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==== Mongolian ====
 
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Useful resources for Mongolian Cyrillic are available at [http://badaa.mngl.net/ Mongolian Language Development Kit].
 
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==== Classical Chinese ====
 
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If you need to work with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese Classical Chinese] texts, please visit [http://ctext.org/font-test-page this page]. If required, follow the link to install the Hanazono Unicode font.
 
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==== India & Turkey ====
 
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[http://evertype.com/fonts/rupakara/ Rupakara] is is a sans-serif font created primarily to give support to the newly-invented INDIAN RUPEE SIGN ₹, which has been assigned to U+20B9. It has been updated to support the newly-invented TURKISH LIRA SIGN ₺, which has been assigned in Unicode 6.2 to U+20BA.
 
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==== Armenian ====
 
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Although the default Unicode font for most front-ends may display Armenian normal text, finding a freely distributable open font that displays text in ''italics'' is proving more of a challenge. In Windows, the '''Sylfaen''' font does a reasonable job, even with italics, though this is not one that we can redistribute. For background, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_alphabet Armenian alphabet].
 
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The [http://dejavu-fonts.org/ DejaVu] Sans font supports the Armenian script, and the Sans family includes Oblique, Bold & Bold-Oblique styles. Through such Bitstream fonts are copyright, they are freely distributable. See [http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/License].
 
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==== Arabic ====
 
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For digital applications, the [http://openfontlibrary.org/en/font/droid-arabic-kufi Droid Arabic Kufi] font is recommended. This is an Arabic type designed for use in Google™ products such as Google ChromeOS™ and Android™. Designed to complement the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic provided in the Droid Sans family, the Arabic matches the color, alignment and design detail of the Droid Sans allowing them to be used together for multi-lingual typesetting. This Kufi style is optimized for reading Arabic script on screen. It provides full language support for Arabic (العربية), Farsi (فارسی), Urdu (اُردو), Pashto (پښتو), Sindhi (سنڌي), Uighur (ئۇيغۇر) and partial for Kazakh.
 
−
 
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==== Bangla ====
 
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*[http://www.omicronlab.com/bangla-fonts.html Free Bangla Fonts] &ndash; Developed Under Avro Free Bangla Font Project.
 
  
 
=== Broad-Coverage Shareware/Commercial Fonts ===
 
=== Broad-Coverage Shareware/Commercial Fonts ===
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[http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/unicode/tituut.asp TITUS Cyberbit Unicode] (requires registration to download, otherwise free) -- 36161 codepoints, designed for Indo-Europeanists & medievalists.
 
[http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/unicode/tituut.asp TITUS Cyberbit Unicode] (requires registration to download, otherwise free) -- 36161 codepoints, designed for Indo-Europeanists & medievalists.
 +
 +
[http://www.code2000.net/ Code2000] (free to try, $5 to register if you can afford it) -- aims at complete coverage of the Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) aka Plane 0. Also available from this page are the freeware fonts Code2001 and Code2002, which are Plane 1 and Plane 2 fonts, respectively.
  
 
[http://guindo.pntic.mec.es/~jmag0042/alphaeng.html ALPHABETUM] (limited trial font which is missing glyphs, €15 to purchase full font) -- a good font for a number of ancient languages such as Gothic, Old Church Slavonic (incl. Glagolitic), Ugaritic, & Phoenician
 
[http://guindo.pntic.mec.es/~jmag0042/alphaeng.html ALPHABETUM] (limited trial font which is missing glyphs, €15 to purchase full font) -- a good font for a number of ancient languages such as Gothic, Old Church Slavonic (incl. Glagolitic), Ugaritic, & Phoenician
−
 
−
===Charset conversion===
 
−
 
−
====Padma====
 
−
 
−
[http://padma.mozdev.org/ Padma] is a system for transforming Indic text between various public and proprietary formats. This extension applies the technology to Mozilla based applications. Padma is available as an extension for Firefox, Thunderbird, Netscape, Mozilla suite and SeaMonkey platforms. Padma can automatically transform web pages that use dynamic font schemes to Unicode.
 
−
 
−
Padma can be customised to include a user supplied conversion. This implies that its use is not restricted to Indic texts. See [http://tidbits.co.in/content/how-write-padma-conversion-file].
 
  
 
=== iOS Fonts ===
 
=== iOS Fonts ===
−
* [http://iosfonts.com/ iOS Fonts] has a list of available fonts that come pre-installed in the latest version of iOS.  Any additional fonts may be installed on a per-application basis.
+
* [http://iosfonts.com/ iOS Fonts] has a list of available fonts that come pre-installed in the latest iPad & iPhone operating system.  Any additional fonts may be installed on a per-application basis.
  
 
== See also ==
 
== See also ==
Line 177: Line 88:
  
 
* [http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/blogs/gotunicode/ Got Unicode?] &ndash; Elizabeth Pyatt's Unicode tips, resources and war stories.
 
* [http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/blogs/gotunicode/ Got Unicode?] &ndash; Elizabeth Pyatt's Unicode tips, resources and war stories.
−
 
−
* [http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/codepages.html Character Sets And Code Pages At The Push Of A Button]
 
−
 
−
* [http://diacritics.typo.cz/ Diacritics Project] &ndash; all you need to design a font with correct accents. The written content on this website is licensed under [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0)].
 
  
 
[[Category:Unicode]]
 
[[Category:Unicode]]

Revision as of 21:28, 9 December 2015

Fonts

These are some suggested fonts for use with SWORD tools. Any of these work with either Linux or Windows tools, and probably Macs as well, though certain fonts work better with different tools. They're TrueType fonts, which means that usually just copying *.ttf to the right place makes them available, and that's necessary only if you don't have some sort of package manager or font installer to do it for you.

All-Purpose

GNU FreeFont, consisting of serif, sans serif, and monospaced typefaces in regular, bold, italic, and bold italic fonts, is an attractive set of open source fonts covering a broad range of scripts in the first two Unicode planes. Many of the glyphs incorporated into FreeFont were designed by professional type foundries.

A derivative of the above Free Serif typeface, FreeIdgSerif, was designed for Indo-Eurpoeanists, but has wide character coverage of use to Bible users.

Linux Libertine is a very pretty typeface that provides quality character sets for all of Latin, Hebrew, and Greek, which makes it especially useful for commentaries that use all three. While it is designed for Linux, it works quite well under Windows, as a display typeface for SWORD tools.

Arial Unicode MS is a useful font - if not the prettiest, it is one of the few combining decent Arabic and Farsi glyph shaping with more or less complete Latinate and Greek alphabets.

There is quite a selection of other fonts available from SIL. Visit SIL and look around, but the Charis SIL and Doulos SIL typefaces, in particular were designed with fairly broad coverage in mind.

Junicode (short for Junius-Unicode) is a Unicode font for medievalists.

Symbola is a free font in George Douros' collection of Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts with support for the new characters in Unicode 6.0.

Particular languages

For particular requirements on languages not listed here, it is generally useful to visit the Wikipedia page for the relevant alphabet or script.

Greek

"Gentium" is a good font for Greek. Look in repositories for gentium-fonts-1.02-5.fc7.noarch.rpm or go instead to [1] to get the *.zip.

Hebrew

"Ezra SIL" is SIL's best font for Hebrew and works very well in most SWORD front-ends. [2]

For BibleTime, the best Hebrew fonts are the Culmus fonts, particularly the Frank Ruehl CLM or Drugulin CLM. Many Linux distributions have a Culmus fonts package (Mandriva calls it fonts-type1-hebrew). If your distribution doesn't have this package, you may check out the Culmus Project site [3] and follow this link [4] to a truetype download.

See also Hebrew Support for Your Browser at the Mechon Mamre website. For front-ends that use a browser (or browser engine) to display Bible text (e.g. FireBible), this may be relevant if you have a problem displaying Hebrew vowels and/or cantillation marks.

Vietnamese

For Vietnamese, fonts like Arial and Linux Libertine work well. However, the UVN fonts are excellent options that are designed for Vietnamese and can be downloaded for free. They can be used for English or other languages that use a Latin alphabet. UVN Saigon looks particularly good with many SWORD front-ends. You can find these fonts at the TTi website [5].

Farsi

Apart from MS Arial, which is mentioned above as a good all round font, the prettiest free font is probably Nazli, available from Farsiweb and part of many Linux repositories.

Amharic

Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. The recommended TrueType font for viewing the Amharic Bible is called GF Zemen Unicode. For further Amharic Unicode resources, see [6].

Coptic

Coptic is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century. Several Unicode fonts include coverage of Coptic. New Athena Unicode is one of them. For further Coptic Unicode resources, see [7] and [8].

Kabyle

The TrueType font AmazighU_Arial is a Unicode font that supports the Kabyle alphabet. However, this is a copyrighted font, made by the Monotype Corporation.

Burmese/Myanmar

SIL Padauk is an excellent font [9]. See also the fonts and keyboard entry methods mentioned in [10].

Indian languages

BarahaUnicode provides:

  • BarahaPad – Text Editor for Indian languages
  • BarahaIME – Input Method Editor for Indian languages
  • Baraha TrueType Fonts for various Indian languages (released under GPL)

Tibetan

  • A Unicode OpenType font called Tibetan Machine Uni is available under GPL license.[11]
  • A Unicode OpenType font called Sambhota Ededris is well advanced in development, though at present it is not available for public purchase. [12]

Nunavut

With only 0.01 people per square kilometer of land, Nunavut is one of the least populated regions in the world. And yet it has four official languages: English, French, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun. For this reason, the government of Nunavut adopted a clean sans-serif font called Pigiarniq (designed by Tiro Typeworks) that enables its people to use all four languages in a uniform manner. The result is a professional-looking free font family. [13]

Broad-Coverage Shareware/Commercial Fonts

Other nice fonts with wide character coverage require purchase or registration. These are not endorsed by CrossWire, though some of us certainly use them.

TITUS Cyberbit Unicode (requires registration to download, otherwise free) -- 36161 codepoints, designed for Indo-Europeanists & medievalists.

Code2000 (free to try, $5 to register if you can afford it) -- aims at complete coverage of the Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) aka Plane 0. Also available from this page are the freeware fonts Code2001 and Code2002, which are Plane 1 and Plane 2 fonts, respectively.

ALPHABETUM (limited trial font which is missing glyphs, €15 to purchase full font) -- a good font for a number of ancient languages such as Gothic, Old Church Slavonic (incl. Glagolitic), Ugaritic, & Phoenician

iOS Fonts

  • iOS Fonts has a list of available fonts that come pre-installed in the latest iPad & iPhone operating system. Any additional fonts may be installed on a per-application basis.

See also

Further resources

  • Got Unicode? – Elizabeth Pyatt's Unicode tips, resources and war stories.
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