Re: Letter spacing in Indic scripts

On शनिवार 07 डिसेंबर 2013 10:30 म.नं., Hariraam wrote:
> Script like Devanagari has "Shirorekha" (top bar/line), normally space
> is used only after a word, i.e. wordspace. No letter spacing is used
> normally. Only in some cases where the text is designed specially
> curved or vertically written, letter spacing needs to be used. In all
> text editing/designing/DTP softwares letter spacing or character
> spacing has to be set off for scripts like Devanagari.  In case of
> letter spacing is used, it is natural that Shirorekha will appear
> cut-off. But in no case the maatra (dependent vowel) or conjunct
> characters should appear as separated by space.

I agree with Hariraam.
1. Shirorekha (upper bar) should be broken in letter spacing.
Unfortunately not able to find any example/reference for this. Being
Devanagari writing person i can say this confidently.

Regards,
Pravin Satpute

>
> It may be very complex to set syllable rules for such rendering. 
>
> हरिराम
> प्रगत भारत <http://hariraama.blogspot.com>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 10:10 PM, Phillips, Addison <addison@lab126.com
> <mailto:addison@lab126.com>> wrote:
>
>     Are there examples (pictures) of the use of letter spacing in
>     print publications (like posters)? I'm less interested in word
>     puzzles than in what printed matter looks like...
>
>     Also, a concern would be what the classical handling off the
>     scripts would be like: that is, what would a typesetter in, say,
>     1950, consider correct extended letter-spacing? Ideally we want to
>     understand the difference between software limitation and desired
>     practice.
>
>     Addison
>
>     (Typed on my Kindle Fire HDX)
>
>
>
>     Prashant Verma <vermaprashant1@gmail.com
>     <mailto:vermaprashant1@gmail.com>> wrote:
>     Dear Richard,
>
>     Indic scripts do letter spacing. They are sometimes used in
>     posters and word puzzle in newspaper/magazines,  etc. We have
>     tested letter spacing property in some of the Indian languages on
>     various browsers. The test results of Hindi are available at
>     *http://w3cindia.in/word_pdf/test-report-for-hindi.pdf*   in
>     horizontal spacing section. Letter spacing does well in Mozilla
>     and at some browsers conjuncts character are broken. The expected
>     result is also shown in the document.
>
>
>     regards,
>
>
>     Prashant Verma
>
>     W3C India
>
>
>
>
>     On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 11:25 PM, Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org
>     <mailto:ishida@w3.org>> wrote:
>
>         Dear Indic layout taskforce,
>
>         CSS3 Text defines a letter-spacing property at
>         http://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-3/#letter-spacing-property
>         <http://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-3/#letter-spacing-property>
>
>         I have two questions on behalf of the i18n WG:
>
>         [1] do indic scripts do letter-spacing?
>
>         [2] if they do, what happens for scripts with a bar, such as
>         Devanagari? Is the bar continuous or broken?
>
>         I suppose another question would be whether there are any
>         other idiosynchrasies involved for indic scripts, such as
>         unequal spacing, etc.
>
>         The CSS3 Text spec is at the end of the Last Call period, so
>         the spec authors would appreciate a quick response on this.
>
>         Thanks,
>         Richard
>
>
>
>
>
>     -- 
>
>     Prashant Verma I  Sr. Software Engineer
>     W3C India
>     New Delhi
>     Cell : +91-8800521042
>     Website : http://www.w3cindia.in
>
>
>