Fonts & Encodings
Yannis Haralambous
O’Reilly Media Ltd.
ISBN: 978-0-596-10242-5
Non-Fiction, Computer
Reviewed by Alain B. Renaud

Continuing their longstanding tradition of bringing exciting and educational resource books to the wide spectrum of users, O’Reilly Media brings us their latest book on Fonts and Encodings. Written by Yannis Haralambous, with his extensive and varied experience in the field, he brings a formable yet excitingly comprehensive guide. Based on the belief that, similar to yin and yang, fonts and encodings together form an inseparable due which is essential to digital writing, he brings this principal to life for the reader.

With more than 1000 pages, this encyclopedic reference will answer your every question regarding typographic options available. As the leaders in the industry such as Apple, HP, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle have adopted the Unicode Worldwide Character Standard, Part I is dedicated to this. Beginning with a brief history of codes and encodings, you will learn about the data that accompanies each Unicode character and how it deals with normalization.   

Continuing on in a logical and easy to use format, Part II discusses the intricacies of font management, including installation, tools for activation/deactivation, and font choices for Windows, Mac OS and the X Window System (Unix). Part III deals with the technical use of fonts with Part IV focusing on the various methods for classifying fonts. In this section you will learn about existing tools for creating or modifying fonts among learning some of the tricks of the trade. With the appendixes offering an in depth look into the various standards and tools on the market, this resource will be quite handy to keep for quick references and detailed explanations.

I found this book to answer every single one, plus so many more, of my million questions on the subject. Mr. Haralambous can only astound the reader with his amazing ability to make information so much fun. Bravo; can’t wait for the next O'Reilly resourcebook!