mixed English and Arabic using Simplefonts?

mixed English and Arabic using Simplefonts?

[Talal Al-Azem]

My apologies if I'm dumbing down the level of discussion here. But I'm trying to get my head around fonts and bidirectionality using ConTeXt MkIV (as a rather unsophisticated user, not as a developer). 

To begin with, since it's all bit much at once, I'm trying to use simplefonts. I am unclear how to establish English as my language and its font as my main font (using the default font), and Arabic as a secondary language (using Scheherazade).

What would I change in the ara-sty environment found on wiki.contextgarden.net/Arabic_and_Hebrew? Or, if I don't need to use this, should I define my own macro in my tex document for directionality?

I'm probably making a mess of some basic things here, but could use some help. I have working familiarity with Fontspec over on the XeLaTeX side of things, but the sparse documentation of simplefonts is leading to my uncertainty as how to proceed.

Many thanks in advance.

Kind regards,
Talal
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Re: mixed English and Arabic using Simplefonts?

[Wolfgang Schuster]

Am 02.10.2010 um 02:16 schrieb Talal Al-Azem:

> My apologies if I'm dumbing down the level of discussion here. But I'm trying to get my head around fonts and bidirectionality using ConTeXt MkIV (as a rather unsophisticated user, not as a developer). 
> 
> To begin with, since it's all bit much at once, I'm trying to use simplefonts. I am unclear how to establish English as my language and its font as my main font (using the default font), and Arabic as a secondary language (using Scheherazade).
> 
> What would I change in the ara-sty environment found on wiki.contextgarden.net/Arabic_and_Hebrew? Or, if I don't need to use this, should I define my own macro in my tex document for directionality?
> 
> I'm probably making a mess of some basic things here, but could use some help. I have working familiarity with Fontspec over on the XeLaTeX side of things, but the sparse documentation of simplefonts is leading to my uncertainty as how to proceed.

\usemodule[simplefonts]

%\setmainfont[Antykwa Poltawskiego]
\setmainfontfallback[Scheherazade][range={arabic,arabicpresentationformsa,arabicpresentationformsb,arabicsupplement}]

\starttext

\input knuth

\textdir TRT أهلا بالعالم!

\stoptext

Wolfgang

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Re: mixed English and Arabic using Simplefonts?

[Khaled Hosny]

On Sat, Oct 02, 2010 at 06:32:05AM +0200, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:
> 
> Am 02.10.2010 um 02:16 schrieb Talal Al-Azem:
> 
> > My apologies if I'm dumbing down the level of discussion here. But I'm trying to get my head around fonts and bidirectionality using ConTeXt MkIV (as a rather unsophisticated user, not as a developer). 
> > 
> > To begin with, since it's all bit much at once, I'm trying to use simplefonts. I am unclear how to establish English as my language and its font as my main font (using the default font), and Arabic as a secondary language (using Scheherazade).
> > 
> > What would I change in the ara-sty environment found on wiki.contextgarden.net/Arabic_and_Hebrew? Or, if I don't need to use this, should I define my own macro in my tex document for directionality?
> > 
> > I'm probably making a mess of some basic things here, but could use some help. I have working familiarity with Fontspec over on the XeLaTeX side of things, but the sparse documentation of simplefonts is leading to my uncertainty as how to proceed.
> 
> \usemodule[simplefonts]
> 
> %\setmainfont[Antykwa Poltawskiego]
> \setmainfontfallback[Scheherazade][range={arabic,arabicpresentationformsa,arabicpresentationformsb,arabicsupplement}]

I think there is no need for presentation forms, they are deprecated
symbols not used for entering text.

-- 
 Khaled Hosny
 Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
 Free font developer
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Re: mixed English and Arabic using Simplefonts?

[Wolfgang Schuster]

Am 02.10.2010 um 18:34 schrieb Talal Al-Azem:

> Dear Wolfgang and Khaled,
> 
> Thank you both for your replies. This has been very helpful. May I ask one further newbie question of simplefonts: how do I change the font for just the "fallback" font, without affecting the mainfont?

Try my example and you can see the font set with \setmainfont is used for the latin text and the font set with \setmainfontfallback is used for the arabic text without any manual font switching.

> Is there a way to do this by setting the size in points, or in scale (percentage), or some other fashion?

\definefontfeature[arabic][mode=node,language=dflt,script=arab,...]

\setmainfontfallback[Scheherazade][scale=1.66,range=arabic,features=arabic]

> In fontspec, i was accustomed to something like:
> 
> \newfontfamily{\arfont}[Script=Arabic,Scale=1.66,WordSpace=1.66]{Scheherazade-Regular}
> 
> I am sure there are equivalents for these feature (size, scale, wordspace); I've seen many features in the simplefonts pdf. But i'm unsure how to define something like "arfont" using simplefonts.

Simplefonts is not such a complex package like fontspec, it’s a simple wrapper around context’s typescript and fontfallback mechanism with a few options to change the typescript and typeface parameters.

A separate typeface can be created with

\definefontfeature[arabic][mode=node,language=dflt,script=arab,...]

\definesimplefonttypeface[arfont][Scheherazade][scale=1.66,features=arabic]

Wolfgang

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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: mixed English and Arabic using Simplefonts?

[Talal Al-Azem]

Dear Wolfgang and Khaled,

Thank you both for your replies. This has been very helpful. May I ask one further newbie question of simplefonts: how do I change the font for just the "fallback" font, without affecting the mainfont? Is there a way to do this by setting the size in points, or in scale (percentage), or some other fashion?

In fontspec, i was accustomed to something like:

\newfontfamily{\arfont}[Script=Arabic,Scale=1.66,WordSpace=1.66]{Scheherazade-Regular}

I am sure there are equivalents for these feature (size, scale, wordspace); I've seen many features in the simplefonts pdf. But i'm unsure how to define something like "arfont" using simplefonts.

Many thanks,
Talal

> 
> \usemodule[simplefonts]
> 
> %\setmainfont[Antykwa Poltawskiego]
> \setmainfontfallback[Scheherazade][range={arabic,arabicpresentationformsa,arabicpresentationformsb,arabicsupplement}]
> 
> \starttext
> 
> \input knuth
> 
> \textdir TRT ???? ???????!
> 
> \stoptext
> 
> Wolfgang
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2010 11:25:12 +0200
> From: Khaled Hosny <khaledhosny@eglug.org>
> To: mailing list for ConTeXt users <ntg-context@ntg.nl>
> Subject: Re: [NTG-context] mixed English and Arabic using Simplefonts?
> Message-ID: <20101002092512.GA1986@khaled-laptop>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> 
> On Sat, Oct 02, 2010 at 06:32:05AM +0200, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:
>> 
>> Am 02.10.2010 um 02:16 schrieb Talal Al-Azem:
>> 
>>> My apologies if I'm dumbing down the level of discussion here. But I'm trying to get my head around fonts and bidirectionality using ConTeXt MkIV (as a rather unsophisticated user, not as a developer). 
>>> 
>>> To begin with, since it's all bit much at once, I'm trying to use simplefonts. I am unclear how to establish English as my language and its font as my main font (using the default font), and Arabic as a secondary language (using Scheherazade).
>>> 
>>> What would I change in the ara-sty environment found on wiki.contextgarden.net/Arabic_and_Hebrew? Or, if I don't need to use this, should I define my own macro in my tex document for directionality?
>>> 
>>> I'm probably making a mess of some basic things here, but could use some help. I have working familiarity with Fontspec over on the XeLaTeX side of things, but the sparse documentation of simplefonts is leading to my uncertainty as how to proceed.
>> 
>> \usemodule[simplefonts]
>> 
>> %\setmainfont[Antykwa Poltawskiego]
>> \setmainfontfallback[Scheherazade][range={arabic,arabicpresentationformsa,arabicpresentationformsb,arabicsupplement}]
> 
> I think there is no need for presentation forms, they are deprecated
> symbols not used for entering text.
> 
> -- 
> Khaled Hosny
> Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
> Free font developer
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
> 
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
> webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
> archive  : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> 
> 
> End of ntg-context Digest, Vol 76, Issue 8
> ******************************************

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If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
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