[PLUG] Devanagari unicode: composite letters ( जोडाक्षरे ); latex

[narendra sisodiya]

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Mayuresh <mayuresh at acm.org> wrote:
> For an example of the issue I am trying to understand, try typing the word
> शुक्रवार (Marathi for Friday in case you can't see devanagari properly) in
> devanagari.
>
>
> You can see the applications like word processors, email editors, browsers
> etc. (most of them) render the word properly.
>
> However other applications like terminal emulators (say konsole or gnome-
> terminal) split the second letter i.e. क्र as "half ka" and "ra".
Its a bug !

>
> It's obvious that there is no separate unicode assigned to (and it's not
> feasible too) to each such composite letter. So it is up to the application to
> compose these letters correctly.
>
> Apart from Devanagari, even Arabic seems to have the same issue (as per
> wikipedia explanation of unicode).
>
> Isn't it strange to leave such core things as font rendering to applications
> rather than them being at system level? Can't there be a common system-wide
> component to do that?
>
>
> Mayuresh.
>
> PS: This all originated from my attempt to use devanagari in a latex document.
> I was able to do it using xelatex and unicode package - but for issues with
> letters like above. Basically xelatex doesn't have the above mentioned logic
> to render some of those special composite letters. (Hence it's painful to see
> it being so application dependent.)
>
> Will appreciate help in getting letter क्र (as an example) rightly rendered via
> latex. (I know other methods like generating pdf by export from OOffice etc.
> That's fine. The question is more about latex.)
> _______________________________________
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