Kothare fonts

kothare fonts
To help write in Marathi language using standard keyboard on a PC kothare fonts were developed by Ashok Kothare in 2007. It is a family of fonts using a keyboard setup using standard (English) keyboard. Kothare fonts are prepared by using Clip font technique. The glyph is split in two suitable parts and put on two different keys. The writer writes by pressing those two keys consecutively. By that arrangement a complete glyph is printed, or appears on the screen. This arrangement was essential to accommodate all the 96 characters of Devanagari script on the standard keyboard. Unlike other Devanagari fonts made, using Clip font technique, kothare fonts are based on default driver of standard keyboard. As a result no need to install any other driver to make them work effectively. As such these fonts can be used on any operating system (Linux, Apple DOS, Mac, Windows) of any version, of past as well as future, by pasting them on the font file of that operating system. While writing on PC, very often the writer has to toggle between a Devanagari writing and English, that is quickly possible by the use of these Clip fonts on the same keyboard.
Though internationally unicode is approved for writing on computer, in India ASCII based keyboards are very common in use for the sake of convenience and practically all writings for printings is done using such Clip font of many makes. Unicode fonts are used only for internet applications.
Copyright for Keyboard setup of kothare fonts is made open and anybody can use it to prepare a Clip font type and is available cost free for any font maker to make fonts for Devanagari script. Similarly the method of using Clip font is used by the same fontographer to prepare fonts for other Indian scripts such as Modi script and Brahmi script. It is claimed by the font maker that many scripts can be accommodated in the standard keyboard using this technique of Clip font.
For preparing some characters of Modi script each character is split in more than two parts. Advantage of using this technique of Clip font is obvious however, writing speed is reduced.

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