[Tugindia] [Duvvuri Venu Gopal] Some ideas for Indian TeX

[S. venkataraman]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Radhakrishnan CV [SMTP:cvr@river-valley.org]
> Sent:	Sunday, October 06, 2002 10:41 AM
> To:	TUG India
> Subject:	[Tugindia] [Duvvuri Venu Gopal] Some ideas for Indian
> TeX
> 
> Here is a mail from Venu Gopal on Some ideas for Indian TeX, which I
> think deserves the attention of all the list members and their valued
> opinions. 
> 
> -- Radhakrishnan
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> Date: 6 Oct 2002 05:06:56 -0000
> From: "Duvvuri Venu Gopal" <venugopal_duvvuri@rediffmail.com>
> To: cvr@tug.org
> Cc: velthuis@rc.rug.nl, lzk60@css.amdahl.com,
> pbpal@theory.saha.ernet.in,
>    amitabhtrehan@yahoo.co.in, raj@freedevelopers.co.in
> Subject: Re: Some ideas for Indian TeX
> 
> 
> Dear CVR
> 
> Thank you very much for the TUG 2002 proceedings. After going through
> it I felt how much I missed.
> 
> I am giving some views regarding development of TeX in India. If you
> think they are appropriate please put them on the list.
> 
> · There should be efforts to standardize the TeX for Indian
>   languages. I have seen DEVNAG of Velthuis and TELUGUTeX of Lakshmi
>   Mukkavalli. I also read the article by Dr P.B. Pal regarding Bengali
>   TeX. Each employed a different approach to reach the same
>   end. Whereas DEVNAG uses the preprocessor the TeluguTeX doesn't. For
>   input each one uses different types of key strokes for the same
>   Indian character.  Suggestion: We may adopt the scheme developed by
>   C-DOC for inputting Indian languages using English key board (in
>   iLEAP
	From the description of omega, I think the best hope for
multilingual type setting is omega. As CVR pointed out 
	in response 
	to one of my earlier messages, it is up to us to make the
effort.  As of now 
	there is very little material available on omega. 
	It probably needs some deeper understanding of plain tex, not
just latex.  I am not sure 
	if I have it.
	 It was 
	one of the topics of the tutorial sessions in tug2002. That's
why I was interested in the proceedings.  If 
	it is not very expensive I would like to buy the proceedings.
>From when can I buy it? How much does it cost?
	 It is now possible to typeset in Greek(?)
	which is spoken by fewer people than, say, Hindi. 
	The encoding is the biggest bugbear.  There was a conference in
Singapore 
	where the use of computers for tamil was discussed.  They have
come up 
	with an inscription which will be used as the standard.  I do
not know 
	if it is compatible with inscript!

> · At present only one type face is available for each language. There
>   is a need to create different styles of fonts (a minimum of 5 for
>   each language with similar looking fonts in other Indian languages).
	Actually, one can use true type fonts in latex, atleast in
MIKTEX.  So, there is actually a large 
	collection of fonts out there.  Of course, it needs some work.
There is a
	link from the miktex home page to an article that explains how.
I was able 
	to use english true type fonts in latex from the information
given there.  I suppose the 
	same information with some modification for true type fonts in
other languages. 
	Of course, one has to worry about the copyright problems.  We
can do this only 
	with free true type fonts.  The fonts made available by
magazines in their web pages 
	are subject to copyright restrictions.  I know there 
	are tamil true type fonts that can be freely used. Again, I
haven't found time to try this out!
	Will this work in LINUX? Only the linux experts can tell? 
> · The main task is popularization of TeX. It is interlinked with the
>   ability of TeX to typeset documents in Indian languages. It is
>   essential because people should not find it impossible to do
>   something in TeX due to which they have to switch for other
>   softwares.
	Absolutely!  I do not know the exact statistics.  My gut feeling

	is that more and more people are empowered by tex/latex.  The
effect 
	Indian tex would be the same.
> · We may prepare small documents of 10 - 15 pages containing
>   history of TeX, how to obtain it, how to install it and some basic
>   commands in each Indian language (where TeX is already available)
>   and put them on the TUG website as .pdf documents. We may also write
>   articles in Indian languages and publish them in computer magazines
>   published in Indian languages (as far as I know computer magazines
>   are available in Hindi and Telugu).
> 
> · There is also a need to form a small group of TeX Programmers to
>   achieve above objects.
> 
> If all goes on well we can distribute IndicTeX.
> 
> Thanking you for patient reading
> 
> Yours faithfully
> 
> D.Venu Gopal
> _______________________________________________
> http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/tugindia
> Home:     http://www.tug.org.in/
> Tutorial: http://www.tug.org.in/tutorials.html