277 lines
6.1 KiB
HTML
277 lines
6.1 KiB
HTML
<HTML
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><HEAD
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><TITLE
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>Fonts</TITLE
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><META
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NAME="GENERATOR"
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CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK
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REL="HOME"
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TITLE="Tamil Linux HOWTO"
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HREF="index.html"><LINK
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REL="PREVIOUS"
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TITLE="Introduction"
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HREF="x58.html"><LINK
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REL="NEXT"
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TITLE="Console Tamil"
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HREF="x90.html"></HEAD
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><BODY
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CLASS="sect1"
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BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"
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TEXT="#000000"
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LINK="#0000FF"
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VLINK="#840084"
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ALINK="#0000FF"
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><DIV
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CLASS="NAVHEADER"
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SUMMARY="Header navigation table"
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CELLSPACING="0"
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><TR
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><TH
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COLSPAN="3"
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ALIGN="center"
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>Tamil Linux HOWTO</TH
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="10%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="bottom"
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><A
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HREF="x58.html"
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ACCESSKEY="P"
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>Prev</A
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><TD
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WIDTH="10%"
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ALIGN="right"
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VALIGN="bottom"
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><A
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HREF="x90.html"
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ACCESSKEY="N"
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>Next</A
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></TD
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></TR
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></TABLE
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><HR
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ALIGN="LEFT"
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WIDTH="100%"></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect1"
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><H1
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CLASS="sect1"
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><A
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NAME="AEN63"
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></A
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>3. Fonts</H1
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><P
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>It can seem like anarchy. There are an unknown number of fonts, each
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encoded with their own tables, driven by arbitrary keyboard
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layouts and outputs. In my opinion, Tamil can seriously compete
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with any other language for maximum number of font tables.
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Added to this commotion are the dynamic fonts for the web
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pages, that enable anyone to get away with a non-standard font
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as long as his pages are viewable.</P
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><P
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>Adding to all these is the official Indian Standard Code
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for Information Interchange (ISCII), the Government of India
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sponsored <SPAN
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CLASS="QUOTE"
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>"unifying"</SPAN
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>
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scheme to bring all Indian fonts under the Devanagari umbrella.
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Anyone familiar with the way the characters are written in
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Tamil and in Devanagari script will understand the lack of any
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rationale in this approach.</P
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><P
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>Needless to say, this is serving to only add to the
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confusion. A good analysis of this and the unicode for Tamil is
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once again written by Sivaraj and can be found at
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<A
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HREF="http://www.tamil.net/people/sivaraj/tamil_unicode.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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> </A
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>. For those not familiar with the Tamil script, a good
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introduction written by Sivaraj is at
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<A
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HREF="http://www.tamil.net/people/sivaraj/write-tamil.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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> </A
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>.</P
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><P
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>Let us ignore the anarchy for a moment and get a picture
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of the frequently used font encodings. There are two main
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contenders and luckily they will converge soon. The first and
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most popular one is the Tamil Standard Code for Information
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Interchange (TSCII), developed by volunteers throughout the world,
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and the other, TAmil Monolingual (TAM), and TAmil Bilingual
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(TAB) encodings, were proposed by the Tamil Nadu Government. Once
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again, TAM is of limited use in an OS environment and we can
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safely ignore that. Almost all Linux efforts are in TSCII
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(Console, KDE, GNOME localizations).</P
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN72"
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></A
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>3.1. TSCII</H2
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><P
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>TSCII is a glyph-based, 8-bit bilingual encoding. It
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uses a unique set of glyphs; the usual lower ASCII set.
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Roman letters with standard punctuation marks occupy the
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first 128 slots and the Tamil glyphs occupy the
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<EM
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>upper ASCII</EM
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>
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segment (slots 128-256). A good overview of the early font
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encoding schemes and a the rationale behind the TSCII
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approach can be found at
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<A
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HREF="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5180/tscii.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5180/tscii.html</A
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>.
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</P
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><P
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>The home URL for TSCII volunteers is
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<A
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HREF="http://www.tamil.net/tscii"
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TARGET="_top"
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>http://www.tamil.net/tscii</A
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>.
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This site discusses the TSCII
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encoding and provides tools including fonts, keyboard
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drivers, editors and inter-conversion tools for various
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platforms. The font encoding table according to TSCII-1.6 can be
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found at <A
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HREF="http://www.tamil.net/tscii/charset16.gif"
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TARGET="_top"
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>http://www.tamil.net/tscii/charset16.gif</A
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>.
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</P
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><P
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>The current version of TSCII is 1.6, and a revision is
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expected anytime now that will fix some anomalies in using
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various slots for encoding. This version 1.7 will be fully
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backward compatible with 1.6 and is expected to gain
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popularity. The <A
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HREF="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tscii"
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TARGET="_top"
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> TSCII discussion group</A
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> currently brainstorms on
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modifications to TSCII-1.6. You may be able to participate in
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the discussions by becoming a member. You may also be
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able to download various beta tools from there. The font encoding
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table according to TSCII-1.7 (draft) can be found at
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<A
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HREF="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tscii/files/charset17_a.gif"
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TARGET="_top"
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> </A
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>.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN83"
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></A
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>3.2. TAB</H2
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><P
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>TAB is a character based bilingual standard proposed by
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the government of Tamil Nadu. The TAB bilingual encoding table can be
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found at <A
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HREF="http://www.tamilnet99.org/annex4.htm"
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TARGET="_top"
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>http://www.tamilnet99.org/annex4.htm</A
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>.
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Tools for TAB encoding (mostly restricted to the Windows
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platform) can also be downloaded in the vicinity of this page.
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</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN87"
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></A
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>3.3. Miscellaneous fonts and encodings</H2
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><P
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>
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There are too many types, and unfortunately they are not documented well.
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It is beyond the scope of this document to discuss them.
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</P
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></DIV
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
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><HR
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ALIGN="LEFT"
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WIDTH="100%"><TABLE
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SUMMARY="Footer navigation table"
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WIDTH="100%"
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BORDER="0"
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CELLPADDING="0"
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CELLSPACING="0"
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="x58.html"
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ACCESSKEY="P"
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>Prev</A
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></TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
|
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><A
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HREF="index.html"
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ACCESSKEY="H"
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>Home</A
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></TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="right"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="x90.html"
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ACCESSKEY="N"
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>Next</A
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></TD
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
|
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WIDTH="33%"
|
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ALIGN="left"
|
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VALIGN="top"
|
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>Introduction</TD
|
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
|
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ALIGN="center"
|
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VALIGN="top"
|
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> </TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="right"
|
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VALIGN="top"
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>Console Tamil</TD
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></TR
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></TABLE
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></DIV
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></BODY
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></HTML
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> |