[XeTeX] FreeSerif not working for me in Devanagari

[Peter Dyballa]

Hello!

To me it seems that some problems with XeTeX come from using inappropriate fonts, fonts which don't have the glyphs needed, don't support a particular script or the language which will be used with the particular script to typeset the text. Partly it's the fault of the users not exploring the fonts in depth. I also think that demanding this preparatory work from the XeTeX user can be too much.

Why not implementing this check, whether the font will work for the purpose intended, into XeTeX? Not as a regular step in preparing the output – this would take too much time and every time – but as an option that only outputs a judgement on the font. A verbose option would then make XeTeX report deficiencies of the font and, maybe, recommend another font(s).

I think a set of empirical rules, heuristics, would suffice: checking the presence of necessary features and tables, emitting a warning when a ligature is missing…

Could this be an useful enhancement?

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Greetings

  Pete

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a night, but set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.