Writing in Hindi and other scripts (was: Re: [OS X TeX] Installing CJK)

[Jonathan Kew]

On 15 Jul 2004, at 1:43 pm, Thomas Schröder wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> I wanted to write a few words in Hindi in a LaTeX document and was 
> surprised that using the original CJK tip from Peder Axensten didn't 
> work. Turns out the Cyberbit.ttf font has no characters of the 
> Devanagari script in which Hindi is written. I then looked around the 
> web for a solution and found the Titus TrueType font which has support 
> for Devanagari on this site:
>
> http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/unicode/tituut.asp
>
> You have to give your name and email address to download it, but other 
> than that the font is free for private use. Using the original mail 
> from Peder I was able to install and use the Titus TrueType font.
> ....
<snip>


I wonder if this procedure is really adequate; I don't see where in 
this solution there will be any mechanism to deal with the 
complex-rendering requirements of Devanagari -- reordering of the 
short-i vowel, formation of half forms and conjuncts, formation and 
positioning of reph, etc.

(Similar comments would apply to using the Titus font for other scripts 
such as Arabic.)

Another option might be to use XeTeX, which would allow you to directly 
use the Devanagari MT font that ships with OS X, with Unicode source 
text; this takes care of the character-to-glyph rendering process for 
you.

Jonathan
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