Sources for Fonts and Unicode

Sources dealing with Unicode

  The XeTex site: https://www.tug.org/xetex/

  For a glossary of terms: https://github.com/jagracey/Awesome-Unicode/blob/master/GLOSSARY.md

  For everything about Unicode: www.unicode.org/ http://www.unicode.org/charts/
  Example: You want to typeset (or learn about!) "Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation".
  The site tells you that these correspond to the range 12400 -- 1247F and you see all the symbols.
  In addition there is a precise definition of each symbol.
  You can download the charts for private use.
  You have to find an appropriate font yourself.

  Type in a symbol to find the Unicode identification:
  http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/whatisit_fr.html

  Choose a language and pick from the virtual keyboard:
  http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelmap_fr.html

  If you can not type a symbol, then draw it: http://shapecatcher.com/

  Various input methods: http://hapax.qc.ca/

fntsample

  Use fntsample to obtain complete charts, in PDF format, ordered according to the Unicode designation
  of all the characters available in a font. The program fntsample can be downloaded at:
  https://sourceforge.net/projects/fntsample/

  Usage: copy and paste ff into a terminal and replace * by the name of the font:
  fntsample -f `*.ttf`
  -o `*.ttf_[fnt_sample_chart].pdf`

  example:
  fntsample -f `DejaVuSerif-BoldItalic.ttf`
  -o `DejaVuSerif-BoldItalic.ttf_[fnt_sample_chart].pdf`

  If you do not have a font, whose name you know: http://www.identifont.com/

  Wikipedia has a list of open-source fonts:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_Unicode_typefaces

Some Sources for Fonts

  I have used fonts from the following, and other, sources. I have placed a selection of PDF tables
  in the directory FONTS+UNICODE/SPECIFIC_FONT_TABLES:

  Libertine Fonts. I use the serif version as my main type: http://libertine-fonts.org/

  Dieter Steffmann has many, very interesting and finely crafted, fonts:
  http://www.steffmann.de/wordpress/test-2/

  The League of Moveable Type: https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/ has Raleway and other nice fonts.

  Hack is an excellent mono space (teletype =\tt or fixed spacing) designed for coding:
  https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/

Other Sites of Possible Interest

  Various fonts such as "Old Italic": http://scholarsfonts.net/

  If you need a glyph and can not find another font that has it, then Unifont is for you!
  "[There are] ... glyphs for every printable code point in the Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP).
  The BMP occupies the first 65,536 code points of the Unicode space, denoted as U+0000..U+FFFF."
  http://unifoundry.com/unifont/index.htm
  For more on Unifont, see: https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/unifont

Hebrew and Arabic

  See the tables and sample texts in the directory: RIGHT-to-LEFT_TEXTS.

  My main interest is in biblical Hebrew and ancient semitic scripts and in addition I am in the process of learning to read modern Arabic.

  For the biblical texts I use the Society of Biblical Literature SBL Hebrew Font:
  https://www.sbl-site.org/educational/biblicalfonts_sblhebrew.aspx

  This is the default font at: http://tanach.us
  This excellent site has the most up-to-date electronic version of the Lenningrad Codex.
  You can copy portions of the Bible off the screen, then paste them into the [FORM_for_RIGHT_to_LEFT.tex]
  and obtain very eloquent versions using XeTex.

  For detailed instructions on how to use tanach.us, see: http://web.ncf.ca/en493/JUDAICA/judaica.html

  Other Hebrew fonts and ancient semitic fonts are available at: http://culmus.sourceforge.net/

  There are also Hebrew fonts available at: https://opensiddur.org/help/fonts/

  For Arabic one can obtain the Scheherazade font at: https://software.sil.org/scheherazade/

Other Languages

  SIL has been developing scripts for various languages and also fonts which are aimed at literacy groups: https://scripts.sil.org/

  Xetex was developed in the 1990s by Jonathan Kew who was at SIL; see the interview with him at: http://tug.org/interviews/kew.html

Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics

  A wide variety of fonts and a great deal of information are available at Chris Harvey's site:
  http://www.languagegeek.com/