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LaserAmharic in Unicode
provides 6 high-quality, Unicode-encoded Amharic (or Ethiopic)
TrueType® fonts in
two
typestyles (EthiopicLSU and AmharicLSU) for typing at least 26 languages in the Hamito-Semitic family of languages
which use the Ge'ez script. (See below for a list of
languages). The LaserAmharic in
Unicode fonts include separate composite forms of each character in the
Amharic Syllabary. The text is therefore balanced
in form and beautiful, both on screen and in print. The fonts also include the
Latin 1 character set and additional Latin characters and diacritics
covering many other Latin languages.
Ethiopic languages are commonly typed with
either a wide blank wordspace or a wide space with dots ( ). In addition,
modern and ancient Ethiopic text may differ in the width of the other
punctuation (either narrow or wide). Currently, the Unicode standard only
includes the narrow English space and the wide Ethiopic space with dots (and
not the wide blank wordspace). Furthermore, Windows and the Macintosh
Operating Systems will only justify text
using the space that is in the regular English space position in the font.
This means that Ethiopic text normally cannot be justified in your files. The LaserAmharic in Unicode fonts support the
various requirements of Ethiopic text by having three versions of both typestyles
of the fonts. The user can choose combinations of the wide blank wordspace,
the wordspace with dots, and narrow or wide Ethiopic punctuation. One of the
pairs of fonts even allows full justification of Ethiopic text, normally not
supported by either Windows or the Macintosh.
LaserAmharic in Unicode includes two deadkey keyboard layouts
that provide four characters per key (instead of the normal two) for easy,
intuitive input of 1) the Ethiopic languages; and 2) English and other
western Latin languages. The Ethiopic keyboard calls up the appropriate
syllable as you type it. For example
 |
You may choose to type Ethiopic text by following the included
Syllabary Chart or
Keyboard Layout Chart.
Languages supported by
LaserAmharic in Unicode:
 | Afar |
|
| Ethiopic Tigrina |
|
| Kebena |
|
| Somali |
|
| Agaw |
|
| Ge'ez |
|
| Kembata |
|
| Tigre |
|
| Amharic |
|
| Gedeo |
|
| Konso |
|
| Wolaita |
|
| Ari |
|
| Gumuz |
|
| Kunama |
|
| Tatar |
|
| Blin |
|
| Hadiyya |
|
| Me'en |
|
plus additional |
| Dizi |
|
| Harari |
|
| Oromo |
|
languages that
use |
| Eritrean Tigrina (Tigriña,
Tigrinya) |
|
| Kaffa |
|
| Saho |
|
the Ge'ez
alphabet. |
Latin Languages covered by LaserAmharic in Unicode:
| Afrikaans |
|
| English |
|
| Indonesian |
|
| Swedish |
|
| Basque |
|
| Finnish |
|
| Italian |
|
|
| Catalan |
|
| French |
|
| Norwegian |
|
plus additional |
| Danish |
|
| German |
|
| Portuguese |
|
languages
covered |
| Dutch |
|
| Icelandic |
|
| Spanish |
|
by code page
1252 |
Continue down the page to see samples of the Fonts and
their use. At the bottom of the page are the Windows and
Macintosh System Requirements, which you should read before ordering.
Cost:
$149.95 Order
Top
Fonts and their use: There are two typestyles in
the LaserAmharic in Unicode product. The EthiopicU
typestyle is a modern form commonly used today.
The AmharicU typestyle was commonly used in ancient texts.
This extract from Matthew 5 shows how this typestyle was actually used.
Notice it has a wide Ethiopic space with dots and the other punctuation is
narrow.
The same ancient text typed with the EthiopicU typestyle:
As described above, in order to support both
ancient and modern Ethiopic texts plus English, we provide the narrow
(English-sized) blank space, the wide (Ethiopic-sized) blank wordspace
(which is not yet in the Unicode standard), and the wide space with dots
(which is part of the Unicode standard). We also provide the narrow
Ethiopic punctuation commonly used today and the wide punctuation commonly
used in ancient texts (as seen above). To do this we have created three versions of each
typestyle. All six fonts are included in the product with instructions to help you decide which font to use for your projects.
Following are descriptions of the three versions of the fonts.
The EthiopicLSU and corresponding AmharicLSU typestyles have a
wide Ethiopic space with dots. All other Ethiopic punctuation is wide.
| EthiopicLSU |
 |
|
AmharicLSU |
 |
The EthiopicLSspU and corresponding AmharicLSspU typestyles
have a wide blank Ethiopic space. All other Ethiopic punctuation is narrow.
| EthiopicLSspU |
 |
|
AmharicLSspU |
 |
The EthiopicOnlyU and corresponding AmharicOnlyU typestyles
have a wide Ethiopic space with dots, and all other punctuation is narrow.
The distinctive feature of these two -OnlyU fonts is that they also include
a wide Ethiopic blank space that allows Ethiopic text typed with these
two fonts to be fully justified, as shown here.
| EthiopicOnlyU |
 |
|
AmharicOnlyU |
 |
Additional Font Samples: Small font samples have been shown above for each font.
The following links will open in a new browser window and will show the
entire Amharic Syllabary in each typestyle. The
samples are on separate pages because the
graphics are quite large and will open slowly if you have a slow dial-up connection.
Note that these samples are low-resolution web samples (graphics). The
actual fonts will always print to the highest quality your printer is
capable of producing and will be consistently beautiful.
Top LaserAmharic in
Unicode is available for both Windows and Macintosh
 LaserAmharic
in Unicode for Windows
 LaserAmharic in Unicode for Macintosh
LaserAmharic
in Unicode for Windows System Requirements:
| Operating Systems
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Requires Windows Vista, Windows XP, or Windows 2000. |
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| Applications
|
Any Unicode-compatible application, such as Microsoft Word
2007, 2003, 2002,
2000, or 97 is compatible. OpenOffice.org 3.0 and newer, Adobe®
InDesign® CS2 and newer, and QuarkXPress 7.0
or newer are compatible. (Microsoft PowerPoint
2003 and older are not compatible.) |
|
Older, non-Unicode applications such as WordPerfect (tested
through version 12), QuarkXPress (version 6.5 and older), Framemaker,
and PageMaker do not
support these fonts. |
|
Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 and older are not compatible with LaserAmharic in Unicode for
Windows. All text is changed to the Arial font, whether typed with
the keyboard, input using Insert Symbol, or pasted from Word using
the Windows clipboard. PowerPoint users should type their text in
Word or another Unicode-compatible application, and save the text as
a graphic for import into PowerPoint. Users can also use WordArt to
create their text. To do this in PowerPoint go to Insert, Picture,
WordArt, and type your text, formatting it as desired.
Alternatively, users can type directly into PowerPoint using our
non-Unicode LaserAmharic fonts. |
|
| Notes
|
These fonts are compatible with the Macintosh
version of LaserAmharic in Unicode. No conversion of files is necessary
when transferring files to Macintosh if your applications are fully
Unicode-aware and compatible fonts are installed on both systems.
|
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Printer: The fonts will print to any Windows printer at the highest quality allowed by your
printer.
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Documentation: All documentation,
including Setup Instructions, a User's
Manual, the AmharicLS Syllabary Chart, and Keyboard Layout Charts (showing placement of the
characters on the keys), is in Adobe Acrobat™ PDF
or Microsoft Word format, included in the product, and installed to the
Windows Start menu for easy access. Users may view the documentation on
screen or print it.
|
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Cost: US$ 149.95
Order
Do you need to upgrade? Check the
current version number and a Release History.
Top
LaserAmharic in Unicode for
Macintosh
System Requirements:
| Operating Systems
|
Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) or higher |
|
| Applications
|
Any Unicode-compatible application. |
|
The only Macintosh applications we are
aware of that support Unicode at this time are Microsoft Word 2008/2004,
Mellel, InDesign CS, QuarkExpress 7.0 or newer,
OpenOffice, Pages, Nisus
Writer Express, TextEdit (included with Mac OS X), Oxygen, and BBEdit. We have
only tested the fonts in Word 2004, Mellel, Nisus Writer Express and TextEdit.
(If you are aware of additional applications please let
us know.)
|
|
| Notes
|
These fonts are compatible with the Windows
version of LaserAmharic in Unicode. No conversion of files is necessary
when transferring files to Windows if your applications are fully
Unicode-aware and compatible fonts are installed on both systems. |
|
Cost: US$ 149.95 Order
Top
For non-Unicode versions of related fonts, available for both Windows
and Macintosh, see:
You may also wish to see our LaserHebrew in Unicode
for Windows fonts, as well.
Because Unicode fonts have different encodings than non-Unicode fonts,
the LaserAmharic in Unicode fonts are not interchangeable with the
LaserAmharic fonts. However, both Unicode and
non-Unicode fonts may be installed on your system (since they have
different file and font names) and may even be used in the same
documents.
Top
Here's what others are saying about LaserAmharic in Unicode:
"The Amharic fonts are
working wonderfully (in addition to the Hebrew and Greek fonts I've been
using for a while now)."
Daniel Rodriguez, Houston Baptist University,
Houston, Texas
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LaserAmharic in Unicode
