Rupakara - First font with Indian Rupee Symbol at Unicode agreed code position - Free Download

I like it. I think that Udaya Kumar Dharmalingam should be commended for his unique design. It is instantly recognizable -- a strong, bold symbol.

I can't say that I have any preference insofar as the shape of any of these symbols is concerned. Since I live in the eurozone, I like euros very much, and would like to have more of them!

Actually there were three proposals submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee. Mine was the first, because of two reasons. The first reason is that, I have proposed other currency signs for encoding before, and I knew how important it was that a stable code point was chosen. The second reason I submitted a proposal very quickly is that the UTC meeting was coming up and I did not know if the Government of India would prepare a proposal quickly. As it happens, they did, and the Department of Information Technology of the Ministry of Communications & IT put in a proposal as well. Another person also proposed the character, though he proposed it for encoding in the Devanagari script block, while I and the Government of India both proposed the Currency Symbols block. My proposal differed from the Government of India proposal in that I used a Times-based glyph for the symbol and proposed a specific code point. The Government of India proposal used the "official" glyph. In the end, their glyph and my code point were chosen. It was a good example of standardizers cooperating.

Nothing. It was the next available space in the Currency Symbols block.

Here is the whole story. "Officially" speaking, it takes time for a character to be encoded. In fact, the INDIAN RUPEE SIGN will not even be sent out for ballot until after the meeting of the ISO Working Group in October. But now that a code point has been chosen, nobody wants to change that. So even though the character is not "official", it makes sense for us to encourage the use of that code point and to avoid the use of other code points which were used in the very first Rupee Sign fonts (such as your own).

In order to use the new symbol you have to have a font (like Rupakara) installed that uses it and your application has to "let" you use the code point even though it is not formally defined. I know it works OK under the Mac OS. Some Windows programs are not very forgiving about unassigned code points.

Well, I don't know, really, since I use the Mac OS. I know that Microsoft makes a keyboard layout editor (Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator or MSKLC), and Tavultesoft makes a keyboard layout editor (Keyman). Also in the short term what was called the "Character Map" in Windows XP and Vista can be used. (I don't know what it is called in Windows 7.)

Rūpakāra or रूपकार is Sanskrit for "maker of images". I understand it is also the Hindi word for a "designer".

Well, I made Rupakara first and foremost for support of the INDIAN RUPEE SIGN. But I decided it made sense to also include all the letters used by librarians and linguists and indologists for transliterating Indian languages (and Sinhala) into the Latin script. This includes the vowels with the macrons on them, the consonants with dots underneath, and so on.

I am sorry to say that I have never yet visited India. The nearest I have been is Kabul to the west and Yangon to the east.

Keep up the good work!

Make sure your fonts work under Windows, Linux, and the Mac OS.

Although I studied Sanskrit (and a little Hindi) at University, I don't speak Indian languages... but I do know a lot about Indian scripts.

Really! I hope very much that your group can help to supply me with more information -- and books? -- about the Tulu script.

It's what I do. It would be easier to do it -- and more -- if I were funded better, but I do what I can. Sometimes it's a struggle, though.

It's my dharma. I seem to have a real talent for script analysis and encoding -- so I do what I can to ensure that more and more writing systems and minority-language characters are encoded. You see, most of the scripts and characters that make the big corporations money have already been encoded. It's the smaller communities that need support. I try to do that.

Some of the encoding projects I have worked on have been quite challenging. The N'Ko script of West Africa was difficult. Egyptian Hieroglyphs took a long time too.

I've been working on a number of very different projects. Some of them are encoding projects. I'm working on a major Coptic font soon to be released called Antinoou. Recently I released a font called Allatuq, which supports many characters in the style of a child's handwriting.

I'm also a publisher of books inspired by Lewis Carroll. I've published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in seven languages and have been working on more. And I've published books in the Irish and Cornish languages, and have some been working on some dictionary projects as well. Most recently I've been looking into language support at the Wikimedia Foundation's projects. Perhaps there is some work to be done there.