Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:41 am Post subject: Writing Syriac
Anybody knows how to write Syriac (if it is possible; I cant do this)? Arabic and Hebrew is supported, so why Syriac is not? (or I dont know how...) I have to use Mellel, but I dont like much its interface.
Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:59 am Post subject: Re: Writing Syriac
Bartek wrote:
Anybody knows how to write Syriac (if it is possible; I cant do this)? Arabic and Hebrew is supported, so why Syriac is not? (or I dont know how...) I have to use Mellel, but I dont like much its interface.
To write Syriac in any Mac OS X application (including NeoOffice), you need two things: a Syriac "input menu" (note: some people call input menus "keyboards") and a Syriac font.
You can see the available input menus bundled with Mac OS X by launching the System Preferences application, clicking on the International icon, and clicking on the Input Menu tab. That is where you see the Arabic and Hebrew input menus that Apple bundles with Mac OS X.
Mac OS X does allow you to install input menus and fonts from third parties. My quick Google search found the this web page that has tips for enabling Syriac on both Windows and Mac OS X.
One important thing that you should be aware of is that since neither Mac OS X nor Windows has Syriac fonts installed by default, your document will not likely be readable on any machine that does not have Syriac fonts so if you install a Syriac font, be sure to export the document to PDF and send the PDF if you are sharing the document.
I forgot to mention one problem that you are likely going to have when you use Syriac fonts in NeoOffice: most Syriac fonts are Windows OpenType fonts. If you are using a Windows OpenType font, all of the Syriac characters in your document will appear in their "initial" form and none will appear in their "medial" or "final" form.
While Mac OS X 10.5 and higher can support Windows OpenType fonts, applications like NeoOffice's font rendering code was written to support Mac OS X 10.3 and higher and so NeoOffice uses Apple's pre-OpenType font rendering functions.
One or two users ask us to rewrite our font rendering code to handle Windows OpenType fonts. Unfortunately, rewriting that code is a massive amount of work and only a few donors have expressed any interest in Windows OpenType font support so such a rewrite is not likely to happen in the near future.
So, if you see only initial forms of your Syriac characters and you really want to use NeoOffice, you will need to find and install a native Mac AAT font that supports Syriac. The good news is that a quick Google search found one such native Mac AAT font here. The bad news is that that font costs US$59.
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