Thai fonts in Xara ???! Can anyone help please . . .

[ivivi]

We're in Thailand.
We have many computers. All have Thai fonts in various Windows versions.
We use many graphics & other programs.
But Xara refuses to work with Thai fonts.
Thai fonts are sort of 'three story', with a main text line, then notation lines above & below.
One suggested workaround (primitive) was to write the text in Word, copy to Xara as a metafile, etc.
Well, the middle line comes through, but not the top & bottom lines.
We love Xara and would like to use it for all our design work, but if it is restricted to English jobs only, we'll have to move on.
So, Xara reps & experts . . . .
Who can help?
Please. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[ivivi]

We're in Thailand.
We have many computers. All have Thai fonts in various Windows versions.
We use many graphics & other programs.
But Xara refuses to work with Thai fonts.
Thai fonts are sort of 'three story', with a main text line, then notation lines above & below.
One suggested workaround (primitive) was to write the text in Word, copy to Xara as a metafile, etc.
Well, the middle line comes through, but not the top & bottom lines.
We love Xara and would like to use it for all our design work, but if it is restricted to English jobs only, we'll have to move on.
So, Xara reps & experts . . . .
Who can help?
Please. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[gwpriester]

Maybe Mark G, or one of the other Xara team can answer this. I know the question has come up from time to time with support for other languages.

Mark, are you there?

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

Be It Early So Humble...

[ivivi]

Come on guys.
Come on Xara!
We need help on this one. We paid for your program, please try to help.

[a4hire]

Hi
I don't know anything about Thailand or what the fonts should look like. I think that Xara X will support any true type font so you just need a Thai true type font. Are these the fonts that you want? I have a true type file that I found at
http://home.rica.net/amberman/
I installed it and made the fonts in Xara X.
I am using windows 98.

[a4hire]

here is a zip file if this is what you need.

[a4hire]

The english language and latin charcaters probably do not translate directly to the Thai language and characters but if I type Xara X in the Thai font it looks like this. Maybe Bill can show us the correct way to write Xara X in Thai. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[gwpriester]

Lanta

Do you have a page layout application such as PageMaker or Quark? And if yes, do they support Thai fonts?

Maybe you can create your images in Xara and add the text in a page layout application.

I e-mailed Xara and asked if they could respond to your question.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

Be It Early So Humble...

[ivivi]

Thanks all for the input so far.

OK --- ti's all a bit confusing to me also, but I'll do my best to make it as clear as possible.


Before MS made Thai Windows, all graphics work here was done on Macs. Many TTF fonts were developed for Macs.
When MS made Thai Windows, they bundled about 10 fonts, including ANGSANA (a sort of Thai Arial).
These Thai Windows fonts (lets just call them Angsana fonts) don't work with Photoshop, Corel & Pagemaker.
However, the TTF fonts from the Macs, of which there are more than a thousand available, work on these programs no problem. Let's call these DS fonts.
However, neither type works properly on Xara, even running on Windows with Thai support.

Now, what I haven't been able to find out is whether the Photoshop, Corel & Pagemaker versions that we're running have been modified to support Thai fonts.
It is clear that Windows with Thai language support is required.

I run a 'clean' non-Thai PC for website use, and neither type of these fonts work on it.

Now, the samples sent in by helpful Bruce look like Thai but show Thai characters in impossible combinations.

In Thai you write on three levels. The main characters are on the middle line (like western font), but other characters are written either above, or below the middle fonts.
This is the crux of the Xara problem.
It is possible to write in Xara with both types of Thai fonts discussed, but it only writes the middle story, and indicates any upper or lower characters as question marks.

That's about as much as I can say.
I have attached a small gif that shows
1. top line - correct output of text from PS
2. middle - same letters output from xara
3. english letters to type to get the above text
in the hope that someone can solve the problem. Line 3 is a 'typing instruction' on what keys to press to make the above text.

I have also attached 2 Thai TTf fonts, the Windows font Angsana, and a DS font DSPreeChaas as examples to play with.

Let me add that neither font works on my 'clean' non-Thai computer with international version of Windows.

To make either font work, it's necessary to install MS Windows Multi-language support including Thai.

Hope that's all the information & tools needed to puzzle this out, if you have any more questions just ask.

Thanks for all so far
Lanta Bill

[ivivi]

Hi Gary
I sent the 2 font files, but they ended up as a new discussion -- can you move them in here or must I resend them?
Sorry about that.
By the way, have followed your tuts and designs for a coupla years now. You've developed a mountain of really good Karma my friend.
Thank you