[mpeg-OTspec] [OpenType] MS Proposal for a new Name Table ID

[Ken Lunde]

Sairus,

I think that the original intent of this proposal is not about specifying which languages are supported by a font resource, but rather what the intended language (or languages) of the font is. For example, a typical Japanese font supports Japanese, Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic, but it would be an especially poor choice for Greek or Cyrillic, and borderline for Latin. If you simply change "supported" to "intended" in your 'OS/2' table snippet, that should cover the original intention of the proposal.

Regards...

-- Ken

On Jan 4, 2013, at 4:11 PM, Sairus Patel <sppatel at adobe.com> wrote:

> I agree with John J, John H, and others that the 'name' table doesn't seem
> like an appropriate place for this kind of information.
> 
> (That said, there is a name ID for PostScript name, which doesn't need to
> be -- indeed, mustn't be -- localized/translated, and which typically is
> not seen by the end user. However, PostScript name is a kind of font
> identifier name, and other font identifier names e.g Family name are
> localized and intended to be seen by users.)
> 
> It's true that the 'OS/2' table has become OT's extensible grab bag of
> miscellaneous information. (The 'head' table could have served this
> function -- both tables share similar information about style bits, for
> example -- but for some reason hasn't.)
> 
> What would be different about adding this "languages supported" string to
> the 'OS/2' (or 'head' for that matter) is that it's a variable-length
> string, and thus far, these tables are fixed-length for a particular
> version. But that shouldn't be an issue.
> 
> *If* we wanted to add this to the OS/2, it might look like this:
> 
> OS/2 version = 5
> Add following fields:
> ULONG languages supported string offset (from beginning of OS/2 table)
> ULONG languages supported string length
> 
> The string could be spec'd as UTF-8 (or UTF-16 BE), comma-separated, etc.
> 
> Sairus
> 
> On 1/4/13 1:05 PM, "John Hudson " john at tiro.ca> wrote:
> 
>> Message from OpenType list:
>> 
>> 
>> I agree that the 'name' table does not seem like the best place for this
>> language information. Before considering the merits of a new, generic
>> 'META' table as John Jenkins has proposed, I'm wondering what pros and
>> cons might exist to extending the 'OS/2' table to include this data,
>> since its use by software parallels that of the codepage and Unicode
>> range information in that table. Is this an option?
>> 
>> 
>> JH
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> 
>> Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com
>> Gulf Islands, BC tiro at tiro.com
>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
>