[Bug 829143] [ta_IN] Fix Rendering of Letter RA,RI,RII per GoTN standards

[bugzilla at redhat.com]

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=829143

--- Comment #10 from Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa at gmail.com> ---
Created attachment 591529
  --> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=591529&action=edit
ZIP of ODT containing relevant text, PDFs showing current rendering

I have now tested the new font. The bottom / is OK, but there are some
positioning issues. 

I notice that you have removed the entire set of vowelless consonants and the
precomposed glyph for ரீ from the glyphs (but you have not removed ரி). I
presume you are trying to get the same effect using GPOS. However, the results
are not altogether entirely satisfactory.

The weird thing is that the positioning is different on Linux (Kubuntu 12.04
LibreOffice 3.5.3) and Windows XP (LO 3.5.0). Please see the attached files
which show the rendering on Linux and Windows. You can see that the rendering
of Lohit Tamil 2.5.1 is virtually the same on Linux and Windows [except for the
fact that Win XP doesn't recognize SHA :-(]. But for the testing TTF version it
is quite different.

On Linux:

The ீ for ரீ is somewhat more to the left. The attachment point of the ீ should
be vertically aligned with the right side vertical stroke of the ர.  

The pulli-s (Tamil virama) on the consonants are mostly OK, in the sense that
they are identical to the rendering of the published Lohit Tamil 2.5.1 (I might
have some suggestions for that in the future too) but for ர் the pulli is too
far to the left. 

On Windows:

The misalignment of ீ for ரீ is higher in this case, and as for the pulli-s,
they have totally gone haywire. You can see it in the PDF.

Comments:

While mostly I work on Linux, for some purposes I still am not able to leave
Windows XP. Apparently your GPOS rules are recognized correctly by the latest
Linux but not by the old Win XP. I cannot afford to upgrade to latest Windows
which might (or might not) have fixed the GPOS problem. I would like to keep
using Lohit Tamil on Win XP also. With the haywire condition of the pulli-s in
the testing version, it has become unusable.

There is also no point in removing the single ரீ when the whole series of
CONSONANT + VS-II is having individual precomposed glyphs. Actually the Tamil
font is very light (and it is Lohit Kannada which you should be trying to
lighten up as I have reported as bug #825115) so there is not much gain in
removing the single glyph (but only GPOS headache).

Removing the pulli series and using GPOS has had the positive effect of making
sure that pulli for all consonants is at the same height. But as mentioned it
is causing problems in Windows. If you are particular about lightening the font
you can use composite glyphs (which do not contain outlines but only references
to existing outlines).

Recommendations:

Restore the precomposed glyph for ரீ with proper attachment of ீ but with / in
the bottom as requested.

If you wish to lighten the font and not give a full pulli series, please use
composite glyphs. Otherwise, just retain the old series and just ensure that ர்
gets its / below. Only then the usability under Win XP could be maintained
(please!).

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