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posted by janrinok on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-more-tofu dept.

A typeface five years in the making, Google Noto spans more than 100 writing systems, 800 languages, and hundreds of thousands of characters. A collaborative effort between Google and Monotype, the Noto typeface is a truly universal method of communication for billions of people around the world accessing digital content.

http://www.monotype.com/resources/case-studies/more-than-800-languages-in-a-single-typeface-creating-noto-for-google/

Google set Monotype a straightforward brief: "no more tofu" – tofu being the nickname for the blank boxes that are shown when a computer or site lacks font support for a particular character. To meet Google's requirement, Monotype needed to develop one typographic family that could cover the more than 800 languages included in the Unicode Consortium standard.

This mammoth effort required harmonious design and development of an unprecedented number of scripts, including several rare writing systems that had never been digitized before. "It was this really phenomenal, daunting project," says Google internationalization expert Bob Jung. "Looking back at it, I'm even surprised myself how ambitious we were."

"Our goal for Noto has been to create fonts for our devices, but we're also very interested in keeping information alive," he adds. "When it comes to some of the lesser-used languages, or even the purely academic or dead languages, we think it's really important to preserve them."

takyon: Ars Technica article and download page at Google.


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  • (Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday October 11 2016, @09:16PM

    by Arik (4543) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @09:16PM (#413120) Journal
    I like for spacing to be predictable. I like clarity (including things like distinguishing 0 and O properly which technically isn't part of being monospaced but still coïncides closely.)

    Munge not
    9 by nine
    four rows
    my array.

    I remember getting graph paper and having to calculate kerning and make all these little notes in pencil before coming back with a brush just to get things to line up right. Then I got a computer and what a huge advance! Digital alphabet! No more guessing, everything is clear and easy to see and easy to plot and makes sense.

    And of course that was just too good to be true so we've spent the intervening decades spending most of our computing power on tasks like plotting the kerning of our shitty fonts ever so carefully so we can emulate the look of those muddy old pre-digital documents.

    So yeah, I don't *only* use monospaced fonts by any means but I typically force anything important, including the web browser, to use one. Life is too short to waste hours trying to spot an array that's been mangled so badly it just looks like typical "web developer" output or figuring out that somewhere in this long string of 0-9 we actually have one or two 'O's.

    Why *don't* you use monospaced fonts more?

    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 11 2016, @10:28PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @10:28PM (#413143)

    Well for programming, sure. If I were quoting a section of code on SoylentNews I'd monospace it. But we aren't.

    And I thought using tables to lay out webpages was considered passe? *shrugs*

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday October 12 2016, @02:47AM

      by Arik (4543) on Wednesday October 12 2016, @02:47AM (#413234) Journal
      And where exactly do you draw the line between programming and something else?

      I haven't called myself a programmer for decades but 'normal' people are always claiming that the things I do with a computer are programming. I just consider it using the computer. But it still involves parsing text and anything that makes it easier and quicker for me to parse text properly is therefore helpful.

      "And I thought using tables to lay out webpages was considered passe? *shrugs*"

      So you're telling me you choose your tools based on *fashion*?
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday October 12 2016, @02:05PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday October 12 2016, @02:05PM (#413432)

        So you're telling me you choose your tools based on *fashion*?

        Hey, I never said it was a good reason :) As far as I'm concerned web technologies are generally a big clusterfuck. It's just unfortunate that it seems everybody wants them in their job description :P

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"