ConTeXt, XeTeX, special effects in Indic font for Kannada

[Robert Zydenbos <context@zydenbos.net>]

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On my Mac (Mountain Lion) I would like to use ConTeXt with a complex OpenType font named Kedage for the Indian language Kannada, and I thought that I could do this using XeTeX (because LuaTeX seems unable to handle Indic fonts at present).

This freely available font (found on Linux systems, for instance) comes in four files: Kedage-n.TTF, Kedage-b.TTF, Kedage-i.TTF, Kedage-t.TTF (normal, bold, italic and bolditalic, respectively).

I have been partly successful with the simple command

\definefontsynonym[kan][name:Kedage]

and then using

\definedfont[kan]

where I want to have the font in the text. Also \font\kannada="Kedage" (and \kannada later in the text) seems to work well without any further indications of language, script etc.

However, I would also like to use the bold, italic and bolditalic forms of the font. Simply using \bold and \em does not work.

Here I see two possibilities:

(1) use the XeTeX parameters FakeSlant and FakeBold, which I have done in LaTeX. But I do not know how this is done in ConTeXt.

(2) use the other font files (Kedage-b.TTF etc.), and again I do not know how to do this.

Can anybody help me out, either way? (I have attached a sample.)

Robert


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\font\kannada="Kedage"

\definefontsynonym[kan][name:Kedage]

\starttext

We will now use a Kannada font named Kedage in XeConTeXt.\blank

{\kannada ಇದು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿದೆ. ಬಹಳ ರೋಚಕವಾದುದು, ಹೀಗೆ ಬರೆಯುವುದು ಎಂದು ಭಾವಿಸುತ್ತೇನೆ. \bold ಈಗ ದಪ್ಪಗೆ, ಮತ್ತು \em ಕೊಂಕು.} (Kedage)\blank

And now it is defined differently:
{\definedfont[kan] ಇದು ಓದಬಹುದಾ? \bold ಓದಬಹುದಾ?}\blank


\stoptext

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