Using foreign language fonts?

**rikkoshea** · 13 October 2009, 07:50 AM

Dear Forum,
Greetings. My first post as a new member of this forum. I hope someone here can help me?
Anyway, I have just bought both the Web Designer & Xtreme programs because they both look excellent, especially for new/less-experienced users, like me. Anyway, I need to enter bi-lingual text in my web pages. I would like to produce the webpages in both languages, with a toggle button/s to change between either language. In particular, I want to use Vietnamese that has special non-standard characters, and English. However, the fonts I have used previously in various word processing programs, Publisher, etc, don't display correctly using Xara? For those other programs I use a Vietnamese keyboard converter program (VPS keys) when entering Vietnamese language. I've tried a lot of different fonts, with similar results. I see many other websites with English-VN pages, text, etc, so I guess there's a simple (or several) solution/s? I can already copy-paste Vietnamese language into the webpage, but that is very laborious and can't be edited and properly formatted. Can another member steer me in the right direction please?
Many thanks,
Roger

**gwpriester** · 13 October 2009, 06:09 PM

Welcome to TalkGraphics Roger.

I don't have the answer to your question. But I suspect that this may be beyond Xara's capabilities. Several members over the years have asked a similar question and I don't think the answer was what you are hoping for.

But let's wait and see if someone with more knowledge of this issue has a suggestion.

**covoxer** · 13 October 2009, 07:20 PM

Make sure you use Unicode fonts.
I'm not very familiar with Vietnamese, but as far as I know, it's based on Latin alphabet and it goes left-to-right so most likely it can work well.

**rikkoshea** · 14 October 2009, 03:28 AM

Thanks John & Gary,
I will try the unicode and let you know a bit later how that goes...

**rikkoshea** · 15 October 2009, 11:22 AM

Hi,
I've researched around the web and have now changed my keyboard converter program (to: unikey 3.63) and set it to unicode and the good news is that it seems like everything is now good! I can enter text correctly in Web Designer, and no doubt it is ok for Xtreme too (which I will try later).
So many thanks for that prompt to stick/go with, unicode.
Cheers, until my next problem/challenge.
Roger (still with a little bit of hair left).
15 Oct 09

**rikkoshea** · 23 December 2014, 08:34 AM

Hi, not sure if it's ok to bump this very old thread which I started 5 years ago! (how time flies). But anyway, can I just mention that Xara support have just recently suggested to me, another way to use foreign language fonts (eg Vietnamese), particularly in Nav Bars, which I couldn't achieve before. The remedy is to create the foreign language text in Word (or similar?) and then copy/paste into a text editor, such as Notepad, and then copy paste back into the webpage Nav Bar. Voila! All is now good, if anyone is looking for such a remedy, Cheers, Rikko

**Mac Hine** · 28 December 2014, 03:00 AM

I'm new to Xara Web Designer, although I have experience with the now defunct XSite Pro.
Thanks for the info regarding using foreign language fonts in the Nav Bars.

I sometimes do website design in Thai. The Thai language is an alphabet based (not character based) writing system, reading from left-to-right.

The first thing I did using the Web Designer trial version was to add some Thai script to a page and check it uploaded and displayed correctly - which it did.

Having read your post about Nav Bars, I've just edited the Nav Bars in the sample website that comes with the trial Web Designer program. I added some Thai text and it displays OK.
I didn't have to do anything apart from selecting a Thai font.

Looking forward to receiving my unlock code so I can get started with a new project. As it's christmas holidays at the moment, I hope I'll receive it on Monday.