--- Forwarded Message from Peter Edberg <[log in to unmask]> ---
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
>References: <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Peter Edberg <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #8224 Converting Devanagari from Mac Classic format to Unicode
>Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 13:17:08 -0700
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum
<[log in to unmask]>
Forwarding a response from Lee Collins at Apple:
MS Word (including Office 2004) on the Mac does not support any
complex script (Devanagari, Arabic, Hebrew, etc). That's why you
don't see the Devanagari fonts in the Word Menu. Pre OS X versions of
Office also had the same limitation, in that they did not support
World Script I layout. However, before OS X, it may have been
possible to fool Word in to believing that Devanagari was Roman. This
allows you to see the Devanagari, but the layout and editing will not
be correct. That's not possible with Unicode, since the Unicode
character code values are unambiguous.
Until Microsoft addresses this problem, I would not use Word or any
Office app for text in any complex script, even Thai, which does show
up in the Word menu. I suggest that you stick to applications such as
Pages that do support these scripts.
This leaves the question of migrating old documents. If I understand
correctly, it sounds like at least one of the paths you describe
works. That is, opening an old Word document in TextEdit or Pages. If
you want to send the Pages or TextEdit documents to Windows, you
might try saving in RTF format. Office on Windows supports Devanagari
and should be able to open the RTF directly. However, I have not
tried that.
Lee
On Apr 24, 2006, at 11:09 AM, LLTI-Editor wrote:
> --- Forwarded Message from "Kanig, David" <[log in to unmask]> ---
>
>> Subject: Converting Devanagari from Mac Classic format to Unicode
>> Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:05:14 -0400
>> Thread-Topic: Converting Devanagari from Mac Classic format to
>> Unicode
>> Thread-Index: AcZlfubqereK19GPRba50U4b6EG9vg==
>> From: "Kanig, David" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>
> A user has for years been working with Devanagari documents in Mac
> OS 8,
> then 9, using:
>
> 1. Apple's Indian Language Kit;
> 2. MS Word, up to ver. 2001, now run under Classic in OS 10.4.
> 3. two true-type fonts of unknown origin:
> a. DevanagariMT.ttf
> b. DevanagariMTBold.ttf
>
> How can I migrate these docs in this font into platform-independent
> Unicode for shared use in modern apps?
>
> So far, I've tried:
>
> 1. In Classic Word 2001: attempted to switch the Devanagari font
> within a doc to Kanchi NR, a Font Suitcase from Yamada dropped into
> System Folder/Fonts, to prepare to attempt to open the doc in a
> current
> version of Word with the new Kanchi font. However, Devanagari
> characters in the Word 2001 doc turn to garbage on change of font
> selection to Kanchi.
>
> 2. Word 2003 on Windows XP cannot work with the Mac fonts.
> Attempting to install by Control Panel > Fonts > File > Install New
> Font... > the wizard does not see any of the fonts: Devanagari MT,
> Devanagari MTBold, Kanchi NR.
>
> 3. Word 2004 on the Mac: I copied the fonts into:
> a. /Library/Fonts
> b. /System/Library/Fonts
> c. /Users/X/Library/Fonts
> However, the fonts don't show up on the font list within Word 2004
> (though DevanagariMT shows up in FontBook and TextEdit; see below).
>
> 4. TextEdit: opens existing Word 2001 files and renders Devanagari
> characters correctly. However, Devanagari characters in files
> saved by
> TextEdit in Word (.doc) format are garbled in Word 2003 and 2004.
>
> 5. Cyclone: the freeware batch-capable front end to the OS X Text
> Encoding Converter has explicit settings to convert from the Mac
> Devanagari format to Unicode. I tried converting to Unicode 4.0
> UTF-16,
> and plain vanilla Unicode. Devanagari characters in the resulting
> files
> are garbled in Word 2003 and 2004.
>
> 6. Apple's Pages (a word processing app in the iWork '06 suite)
> opens existing Word 2001 files and renders Devanagari characters
> correctly. However, the .pages format is incompatible with Word. On
> exporting into .doc format, Pages fails with the alert: "The font
> 'Devanagari MT' couldn't be converted for use by Microsoft Office."
>
> 7. AppleWorks 6: cannot open Word 2001 Devanagari files.
>
> Can you suggest any tools or strategies for trying to convert this
> obscure Mac format Devanagari font into something intelligible to
> modern
> MS Office?
>
> David Kanig
> Language Resource Center
> Brown University
> [log in to unmask]
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