[sword-devel] Re: Greek accents

[DM Smith]

I have tried Cardo, FreeFonts, Gentium, Ezra SIL and a bunch of other 
fonts for Greek and Hebrew, I still have not found one that I like in Java.

While Cardo looks great, it only does so when anti-aliased. Also, when 
selecting text, it only highlights the top half of the line. And (I 
think related to this) there are times when the bottom half of 
characters disappear and don't repaint.

(Troy, this is similar to our experience with FlashCard and Hebrew vowel 
points disappearing.)

I don't know if this is a bug in Java or a problem with how the font is 
specified internally.

In the list of fonts, I suggest that you also list "Arial Unicode MS" 
early. I would do it in addition to Arial as not all windows machines 
have it. It is more complete than arial and handles decomposed without 
boxes.

Troy A. Griffitts wrote:

> Awesome!  Thanks for all this info!  We've been throwing around ideas 
> on our developers' forum.  I'll forward your findings.  Missed the 
> screenshot, though.  Looking forward to spending some time together soon!
>
>     -Troy.
>
>
>
> Christian Computer Art wrote:
>
>> I've had a play with the Greek fonts. The problem is, as I suggested, 
>> that the unicode fonts given free with Windows are not good enough. 
>> The best one is Arial, which your style sheet encourages Windows to 
>> use. But even Arial is no good at the more complex combinations of 
>> breathings and accents, which are quite common in accented NTs. 
>> Modern Greek doesn't bother with them, so Arial doesn't bother.
>> You need to persuade people to get a 'scholarly' unicode font. I 
>> recommend the free Cardo font, which has very good Hebrew as well as 
>> superlative Greek and all the rare medieval symbols found in 
>> theological texts. The font style of the Latin part is very similar 
>> to Times, and the Greek is a good compromise between being simple 
>> enough to look good on the screen and fancy enough to look good on 
>> paper.
>> The only free font which is better is TITUS, which has Syriac as well 
>> as Hebrew and Greek. But each user has to sign a personal 
>> declaration, so you can't just put the font on your web page, ready 
>> for download.
>> The Cardo font is available from David Perry's site, but I would 
>> recommend that they download it as part of the Tyndale Unicode Font 
>> Kit, which includes keyboards and an installation program - see 
>> http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/Fonts.htm
>> That will give them an easy way to write Hebrew & Greek, as well as 
>> read your web pages.
>> Change the style sheet to read: font-family: Cardo,"Trebuchet MS", 
>> verdana, lucida, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
>> You also need to tell them to make the Browser use Cardo. For IE6: 
>> Click on "Tools", "Internet Options", "Fonts"
>> For the Language Script "Latin based" set the "Web page font" to "Cardo"
>>
>> I attach a screenshot. I made it by copying the source of a page and 
>> inserting the font-family line. It also works wonders for your 
>> Hebrew, which looks OK but ugly with Windows fonts.
>>
>> David
>>
>> |   ///       David Instone-Brewer               |   dib       
>> Christian Computer Art           |    ^        Email: 
>> David2004 at CC-Art.com           |   \_/       Web: 
>> http://www.CC-Art.com/ 
>>
>> 33 Bramley Way, Hardwick, Cambridge, CB3 7XD, UK   Tel:  UK 01954 210009
>>
>>
>>
>
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