[XeTeX] Egyptian hieroglyphs in XeTeX (Benct Philip Jonsson)

[Jonathan Kew]

On 26 Aug 2009, at 15:43, Robert B. Gozzoli wrote:

> Dear Benct and David
> I thank you for the discussion, but the problem is not exactly
> palaeographical, just to answer to Benct. I still need a photo or a
> facsimile in order to do palaeography. But this is also true for any
> language, unless you can reproduce ligatures, styles used for that
> period etc. If I read a Latin text in a Teubner edition, I confess I
> do not care whatever is the font, what I need is the Latin text. The
> notes will tell me about the graphic style of the manuscript, if it is
> a copy of that Irish monastery, or an Italian copy from the Laurentian
> Library. Or I have to buy a very expensive commentary do be informed
> about it.
> What I would like is just typing hieroglyphs in Unicode format, yet
> maintaining the scaling and grouping typical of the writing. I cannot
> type A1 B2 H8 C3, and having those signs one after the other. This is
> not the language I have been studying, but I should have something
> like this (Please see attached file, a text in the Museum of Berlin).
> The example is quite complicated, as it needs mirroring of the signs,
> clustering and grouping.
> But the 1,000 plus signs are now there, and the font already exists
> too. So what is for, if there is no way to use it, apart from doing
> beautiful lines of hieros for decorating the pages?
> I partially understand that I can do something like this if I use
> Graphite, but I do not care about that, as I would like to use it in
> XeTeX.

If you have a Graphite font, you can use that in XeTeX ... it supports  
Graphite font rendering rules, if the font is loaded with the /GR  
modifier on the name.

JK