Return-Path: <manop@ctrl.titech.ac.jp>
Message-Id: <9408281610.AA14636@hinata.ctrl.titech.ac.jp>
To: CompGang <patpong@aim.titech.ac.jp>
Cc: manop@ctrl.titech.ac.jp
Subject: Thai fonts
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 1994 01:10:23 +0900
From: Manop WONGSAISUWAN <manop@ctrl.titech.ac.jp>

Dear all:

     Three fonts for Thai characters are attached to the end of this
mail.  I contributed two of them (7-dot and 8-dot) to Mule (an editor
that can edit Thai).  I think, because of its small size, this kind of
fonts cannot be easily created from the vector font.  And I guess that
what is contained in the 6-dot font (bitmap of size 5x6) must be the
smallest Thai bitmap font we can create.  (Try to put Tho-Phuthao or
No-Nen into 5x6 bitmap and you will know that smaller size is nearly
impossible.)  So what is left to do is to make vector fonts that can
be nicely digitized to large bitmap fonts (e.g. Metafont).

     You can use these fonts on X windows to display Thai characters
using Hui's txterm, Mule, xterm, or even kterm.  Install fonts into
your X windows (see, I think, Section 2.1 of Hui's document if you
don't know how to do so), and try

 % kterm -fn a16 -fk kanji16 -fr thai8x20

then you will get a terminal emulator that can display three languages
(English, Japanese, and Thai) at the same time.  (Or replace a16 and
kanji16 with proper English font and Kanji font available at your site.)
Thai language looks much better in Hui's txterm, though.  Make ftp
access to rumi.cs.titech.ac.jp if you want to learn more about Hui's
txterm or Hui's document.

     Because these fonts are in public domain, you can modify them as
you like.  Try displaying some Thai text (such as THAI.DOC in Hui's
likit package) to see if there is any character difficult to recognize
then make it look better.  But please also tell us about the
modification you make.  Share good fonts with us, OK?  You may also
find some problem with the properties in BDF file because I made only
the shape of the font and did very little to its properties.  In fact,
I don't to how to correct them. :-(  If you find any bug in the BDF
file, please let me know.

JIM


