[OS X TeX] Malayalam with xelatex

[Herbert Schulz]

On Nov 12, 2013, at 6:49 PM, NMPOST7 <nmpost7 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 13/11/2013 01:00, NMPOST7 wrote:
>> On 13/11/2013 00:48, Herbert Schulz wrote:
>>> Howdy,
>>> 
>>> What language is mal written in? Is it something like Perl or is it compiled (e.g., written in C)?
>> 
>> I think it is written in c. I do not have it on my mac
>> Here is the link
>> 
>> http://malayalam.sarovar.org/install.html
>> 
>>> Have you looked into using xelatex for your needs?
>> I did try it once but got a very poor result due to the ligatures and misplaced
>> vowels. Probably I need to try again. It has been a long time. I shall run a
>> search and see how the coding is. Probably things have changed and I can do it
>> using xelatex and thus be rid of using a preprocessor.
>> If I can get to starting point I can slog forward and find my working space :)
> 
> I just tried and have good news but not so good one as well.
> The files are attached. Engine used was xelatex
> 
> When the used font is Rachana: the digits do not get rendered
> When the used font is AnjaliOldLipi
> 
> \setmainfont[Script=Malayalam,Mapping=tex-text,,HyphenChar="00]{AnjaliOldLipi}
> 
> The half letters (seen in the attached pdf) are not rendered.
> The same happens when I use Meera as the font.
> Rachana is my favourite as it uses the old script and has a more aesthetic
> appearance.
> 
> The same problem exists with the page numbering :(
> 
> Best regards
> suren

Howdy,

I don't have your font(s) but there is a Malayalam font supplied in OS X. Here is something that seems to work:

%%!TEX TS-program = xelatex
%%!TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setdefaultlanguage{malayalam}
\newfontfamily\malayalamfont[Script=Malayalam,Ligatures=TeX,HyphenChar="00]{Malayalam Sangam MN}
\begin{document}
മലയാളഭാഷ. ൽ ൾ ർ  ക്ക ങ്ക കൃ   1,2,3    
\end{document}

which gives

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on my system.


Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)