SOFTware and FONTS
We develop fonts and related software required for processing text on the computers. Since 1995, we are selling software and fonts, for typesetting Hindi, Marathi (& other DevaNagari languages) and English. We are trying to include support for the other Indian and European languages/scripts in our type-software.
Typesetting MultiLingual text of
Hindi (DevaNagari) & English (Latin)
The 'Nagari' or 'Devanagari' script is used by millions of people for writing text of Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit and other regional languages in India. English is also used by a lot of Indians, so they need computer-types (fonts) and software that can process, store and render (display) multilingual text.
Unicode for DevaNagari
Before Unicode, Indians were using various encodings as there was no practical standard for processing Indic scripts in computers.
Though there was ISCII (Indian Script Code for Information Interchange) but no system vendor supported it! Then, Indic code charts of Unicode were derived from ISCII-88!
Most of the scripts of the Indian subcontinent largely follow similar rules for formation of syllables. Lots of characters of these scripts have one to one correspondence! So transliteration between various Indian scripts is easily possible! Code points for the characters of these scripts in Unicode/ISCII are arranged according to a common plan.
Enabling Unicode properly in old computers should be a priority. We should remember that lot of Indians live below poverty line and it is not feasible for most organisations in India to keep upgrading!
Following are the DevaNagari-English software and fonts we have designed.
Unicode compliant OpenType Fonts
Modern operating systems which are Unicode based can directly let you enter text in most of the scripts in addition to English (DevaNagari, Gujarati etc.). These operating systems (like Windows XP, Vista) don't require additional software to enter and render text in most of the scripts. These operating systems have lots of fonts. Some of these fonts (generally those with only European characters) are of high quality. But fonts of complex scripts (particularly Indic ones) are just there to fulfill international requirements. For Hindi, we need additional DevaNagari OpenType font/s of acceptable quality. Then we can properly typeset Hindi text along with English directly even in plain/simple text editors like Notepad.
We have designed and programmed a cool OpenType font - 'Akhil HE'. This font contains a logical set of DevaNagari glyphs (we call 'Saral Nagari') along with ASCII characters (regular Roman alphabets etc.). It is an optimised, synchronised and professionally instructed (hinted) font. Its quality can be fully appreciated while typesetting multilingual text (Hindi, English).
There are lots of advantages of using this font. We are currently porting this font on iMac (OS X). If you are a OS X user, please wait for the release.
Unicode Solution for Windows 98/XP...
Windows 98 do not support Unicode completely. In past, we developed a package named 'Sugam-98' to enable easy entry of Unicode encoded Nagari in Windows 98.
Components of Sugam-98:
- Aforementioned OpenType font - Akhil HE
- A simple TrueType font - Akhil
- iNagari-98 (An Enhanced Keyboard Layout)
- InScript-98
For Newer Windows OS like Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7 we have Sugam 2K.
To read more about iNagari click here.
Indian Software - LeKhaNi
In the past, we developed LeKhaNi (Lekhni) for Windows 95. It used to render and record text in a non standard encoding. Its last version was 2.1. Forthcoming Lekhani 3.0 will be a Unicode based multilingual editor. Don't wait for it, instead use the OpenOffice.org Writer for your text editing. Use our font 'Akhil HE' in the Writer for ultimate satisfaction.
