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Using Nirmala UI on Mac. #1070

Open Yaarayehyay opened 10 months ago

Yaarayehyay commented 10 months ago

I want to be able to read and type Kannada into MS Word files on an Apple computer running OS 10.13.6 with Microsoft Word 2011 version 14.4.4. The file I've received was written in Nirmala UI. How can I read that file on my Apple computer?

I'd also like to be able to work with Tamil and Sinhala files.

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kenmcd commented 10 months ago

Newer versions of MS Office for Mac include both the Nirmala and Tunga fonts which support Kannada. I just checked and Office 2011 for Mac did not have them, but Office 2013 for Mac and later versions all have both font families.

You can also use free fonts from Google Fonts. Filter for Kannada: https://fonts.google.com/?subset=kannada That filter shows nine fonts/font families which support Kannada. Filter for Sinhala shows six families. Filter for Tamil shows 14 families.

Yaarayehyay commented 10 months ago

Thank you, Ken.

On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 1:38 PM kenmcd @.***> wrote:

Newer versions of MS Office for Mac include the both Nirmala and Tunga fonts which support Kannada. I just checked and Office 2011 for Mac did not have them, but Office 2013 and later all have both font families.

You can also use free fonts from Google Fonts. Filter for Kannada: https://fonts.google.com/?subset=kannada That filter shows nine fonts/font families which support Kannada. Filter for Sinhala shows six families. Filter for Tamil shows 14 families.

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alib-ms commented 10 months ago

Word 2011 is old. The Nirmala font family was initially introduced with Windows 8 and later incorporated into Office. I am uncertain about the compatibility of this font in Word 2011. If your browser is up to date you could try the free web version of Word via Office.com. Office uses cloud font service and Nirmala should be available in the font list.

Yaarayehyay commented 10 months ago

I just visited the page linked by Ken and downloaded the Noto Sanns Kannada font family, installed it, then tried to find it among the fonts available to files open in MS Word: it did not pop up. I am not familiar with the protocols for adding fonts to MS Word, but I followed instructions I found online. Is it likely that the sheer antiquity of my MS Word software is standing in the way?

tiroj commented 10 months ago

There is an issue on Mac with some versions of third-party apps not being able to load more than a certain number of the installed fonts on the system.

alib-ms commented 10 months ago

Thank you, I'm Interested in finding out whether the problem is specific to the Noto Sanns Kannada font only, or if it applies to any font, you install, and it doesn't appear in the Word font menu?

kenmcd commented 10 months ago

Apple has been blocking that font in later versions of macOS. It was supplied with later versions than your 10.13. The Noto Sans Kannada family is now what they call a "Document-support font" - which means it can only be used in existing documents and it is blocked from new documents. This affects other applications (and blocks them from using the fonts). It is beyond stupid that Apple blocks a free open-source font family.

Your version 10.13 did not originally come with Noto Sans Kannada. But I am wondering if in their arrogant stupidity they are blocking it.

The work-around is to rename the fonts. (They are also blocking some commercial fonts which makes renaming a problem - so the users cannot just buy the commercial version to fix the Apple blocking.) So to test my theory I have renamed the fonts to NotSansKan. Try these: NotSansKan.zip

I just renamed the normal width. If these work, I can fix the other widths for you. Make sure to re-set your font cache after installing.

Yaarayehyay commented 10 months ago

Thank you, Ken. I am not familiar with downloading fonts, so I've been following instructions from online tutorial videos. After downloading the renamed ZIP file, I opened the unzipped folder, found the fonts, and loaded them. When I tried to figure out how to reset my font cache, the instructions I found did not correspond to what was in my library folder. Maybe you can tell me how I should do it. (I opened a few MS Word files and was not able to find the Kannada fonts.)