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Short URL: https://scripts.sil.org/UTTDraftMap

Create Your Draft TECkit Mapping File

Joan Wardell, 2005-09-29

Goals for this step

In this step, you will look at other people's mappings, choose a source, and create a draft TECkit mapping for your font.

This step is part of the procedure How to Write a Conversion Mapping for your Legacy Font.

Choose a Draft Mapping Source

There may be sources of mappings already available which will make your work much easier and take less time. Look at all of the following items and choose a source for your draft mapping.

1. Create a draft mapping automatically if you are using a font created with the SIL Encore package. See How to Identify an Encore Font. If so, follow the procedure for drafting a mapping here: How to Draft a TECkit mapping for Encore Fonts using Encore2Unicode. This could save you two or three weeks of work.
2. Here is an empty draft mapping if you want to start from scratch. The correct file is now available.

   Draft TECkit Mapping file Joan Wardell, 2008-03-17 Download "UTTDraftMapping.txt", Text document, 14KB [9857 downloads]

3. Legacy IPA fonts
   • If your font is a legacy IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) font, find out if it is similar to the SIL IPA93 font. You can do that by carefully comparing the chart you created in What's in Your Font? to this one:

     YourIPA93Font.pdf Joan Wardell, 2005-09-28 Download "UTTYourIPA93Chart.pdf", Acrobat PDF document, 40KB [3556 downloads]

     There is already a standard TECkit mapping available for the IPA93 font. You should use the codepoints from this mapping for any that match your legacy font. The mapping is available here:

     SIL PUA to Unicode 4.0 Mapping (SIL PUA 4.0) Jonathan Kew, 2004-07-20 Download "SILPUAtoUnicode40Mapping.zip", ZIP archive, 2KB [4905 downloads]

     This type of TECkit map does not give numerical codepoints, but you can still use it. Simply copy the lines you need from the IPA93 mapping to your mapping. You may start with the IPA93 mapping itself or an empty draft mapping.
   • TECkit mapping language conversion If you are writing a mapping for an IPA font, we suggest you also carefully work through this Tutorial, including creating a draft mapping with Encore2Unicode, editing the mapping, and checking results. The tutorial also is helpful for working with more complex mappings, requiring identifying the context of a given character. This tutorial requires only the ipa93dr.ttf font.

     IPA93 Font (Doulos Regular only) Joan Wardell, 2005-12-13 Download "UTTIPA93Zip.zip", ZIP archive, 24KB [2217 downloads]

4. Check if anyone in your entity or area has already developed a mapping for fonts or a character set similar to yours. Use their mapping as a basis for your mapping.
5. Many widely-used SIL fonts such as Hebrew and Greek will already have mappings available. Check with your entity, area, or the NRSI if you need a mapping for a common font.
6. Consider mapping only the list of characters from the step What's in Your File?. If you choose to do an incomplete mapping, please do not publish it or pass it to others.
7. If your legacy font is non-Roman or you cannot find a similar mapping already available, you will need to start with the empty draft mapping file (See 2 above.)

Create your Draft Mapping

Once you have chosen a source mapping from one of the options above, place a copy of the original mapping (.map) file in your work folder. Make another copy of the original mapping file to use as your new mapping. If you are using the draft mapping provided above, change the ".txt" extension to ".map". You may wish to add a version number to your map name, for example "draft01.map". Increment this number and save often as you work on the mapping file to reduce the chance of losing your work.

The next step is Edit Your Mapping.

Page History

2008-02-26 JW: review, updated

2005-09-29 JW: Page created

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