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Short URL: https://scripts.sil.org/WSI_Guidelines
Guidelines for Writing System Support
From January to October of 2003, SIL International was engaged in a cooperative project with 
UNESCO as part of UNESCO’s Initiative B@bel effort. The goal was to enable the development of complex script support in information and communication technologies (ICTs). This was done through preparation of documents to guide development, technical tools for complex script support, and two example script implementations. All of these are available from a general UNESCO page.
This is the primary document of the project, and describes the key issues around supporting complex scripts in ICTs. It is intended as a guide to the planning and development of writing system implementations. It introduces a model for writing system implementations, outlines the development process, and highlights keys to project success.
These Guidelines are written primarily for policy makers and professionals, but includes introductory technical material in later sections. This covers important topics regarding encoding, keyboarding and rendering. It gives specific guidance on working with Unicode™, including how to propose new characters for submission.
The complete document is available on these pages, but can also be downloaded in both Word and PDF formats:
 | Guidelines for Writing System Support - Word Victor Gaultney, 2003-10-31 Download "Guidelines_Word.zip", ZIP archive, 1MB [7848 downloads] |
 | Guidelines for Writing System Support - PDF Victor Gaultney, 2003-10-31 Download "guidelines_pdf.pdf", Acrobat PDF document, 2MB [17962 downloads] |
Introductory sections
Section 1: Components of a Writing System Implementation
Section 2: The Process of WSI Development
Technical sections
Section 5: Technical Details: Characters, Codepoints, Glyphs
- Part 1: Characters
- Part 2: Codepoints and Glyphs
- Part 3: Keystrokes and Codepoints
- Part 4: Further Reading
Section 6: Technical Details: Encoding and Unicode
- Part 1: An Introduction to Encodings
- Part 2: An Introduction to Unicode
- Part 3: Adding New Characters and Scripts to Unicode
Section 7: Technical Details: Data Entry and Editing
Section 8: Technical Details: Glyph Design
Section 9: Technical Details: Smart Rendering
- Part 1: The Rendering Process
- Part 2: Glyph Processing — Dumb Fonts
- Part 3: Glyph Processing — Smart Fonts
- Part 4: User Interaction
End matter
The Word and PDF versions also include a comprehensive Index.
Copyright notice
(c) Copyright 2003 UNESCO and SIL International Inc.
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