Lontar

Keyboards and fonts for iPhone and iPad

icon for Aksara Nusantara appOur apps for iOS provide keyboards and fonts for Indonesian scripts such as Balinese and Javanese, as well as keyboards for Vietnamese and the subset of the International Phonetic Alphabet used for English. ➜ more information

Font documentation and test tools

icon for FontRenderDiffOur font documentation and test tools assist in documenting and testing fonts and in preparing script documentation. ➜ more information

Technical notes

Encoding orders of Brahmic scripts

October 18, 2024

This article documents the encoding orders that the OpenType Universal Shaping Engine assumes for the Brahmic scripts it supports. Understanding encoding orders is necessary when rendering or otherwise interpreting text in these scripts, as well as when entering text using input methods or otherwise generating text.   

Brahmische Schriften: Vom Palmblatt zum Handy

January 10, 2024

🇺🇸🇬🇧 On January 9, 2024, Norbert Lindenberg gave a talk at Weltmuseum Wien, the anthropological museum in Vienna, with an introduction into the evolution of Brahmic scripts and their implementation on Computers. Here are the slides, in German.

🇩🇪🇦🇹 Am 9. Jänner 2024 hielt Norbert Lindenberg im Weltmuseum Wien einen Vortrag „Brahmische Schriften: Vom Palmblatt zum Handy“, einer Einführung in die Evolution brahmischer Schriften und ihrer Übertragung auf Computer. Hier sind die Folien.   

Implementing Javanese and Kawi

September 22, 2022

The Unicode Consortium has published two new Unicode Technical Notes written by Norbert Lindenberg. The documents assist in implementing the Javanese and Kawi scripts in fonts, font rendering systems, keyboards, and other software by providing information that complements information in The Unicode Standard.   

Line breaking at orthographic syllable boundaries

August 22, 2022

Norbert Lindenberg has proposed to introduce support for line breaking at orthographic syllable boundaries into Unicode Standard Annex #14, Unicode Line Breaking Algorithm. This style of line breaking has long been documented as a requirement for several Brahmic scripts, but has so far not been supported in the standard algorithm.   

Learnings from encoding Kawi

October 14, 2021

On October 14, 2021, Norbert Lindenberg gave a presentation “Learnings from encoding Kawi” at the Internationalization and Unicode Conference 2021. Here are some materials related to the presentation.   

Constructing fonts for the Batak script

October 14, 2020

This document provides information for the construction of fonts for the Batak script, a Brahmic script of North Sumatra.   

Issues in Devanagari cluster validation

August 25, 2020

Following up on our investigation of Khmer syllable validation, we looked at Devanagari, hoping for a better result, but no: The Unicode Standard and the OpenType documentation don’t agree on the definition of a valid Devanagari cluster, and Devanagari cluster validation in OpenType shaping engines and in fonts produces inconsistent results.   

Support for Brahmic scripts in OpenType font rendering

November 17, 2019

Support for Brahmic scripts in OpenType font renderers can vary, not only between operating systems, but also between browsers and applications.   

The challenge of Brahmic scripts

August 22, 2019

In this introduction to a series of articles on creating fonts for Brahmic scripts, we look at the features of Brahmic scripts that present some challenges in font development.   

Issues in Khmer syllable validation

January 13, 2019

The Unicode Standard and the OpenType documentation don’t agree on the definition of a valid Khmer syllable, and Khmer syllable validation in OpenType shaping engines and in fonts produces inconsistent results.   

Creating fonts for Brahmic scripts with OpenType and Apple Advanced Typography

October 16, 2017

On October 16, 2017, Muthu Nedumaran and Norbert Lindenberg gave a presentation “Creating fonts for Brahmic scripts with OpenType and Apple Advanced Typography” at the Internationalization and Unicode Conference 2017. Here are some materials related to the presentation.   

Bringing Balinese to iOS

October 27, 2015

While iOS itself only supports the most popular writing systems of the world, recent changes have made it possible for third parties to provide the core support, fonts and keyboards, for additional writing systems. This article discusses how to implement fonts and keyboards for a complex writing system for iOS, based on the experience of developing the Balinese Font and Keyboard app.   

Installing Fonts on iOS

June 24, 2015

Some apps need to install fonts for system-wide use on iOS, for example when also providing third party keyboards for writing systems that iOS doesn’t support. This article describes how such apps can package and install fonts, based on the experience of bundling the Ubud font with the Balinese Font and Keyboard app.   

Developing Keyboards for iOS

December 5, 2014

With iOS 8, Apple provides an extension API that lets third-party developers create custom keyboards for iOS. This article provides some tips for developers from the experience of developing the English IPA keyboard, from looking at a number of other keyboards, and from discussions on Apple’s developer forum.