Unicode Support

library(lofifonts)

Unicode support

Each font supports a different number of glyphs. The vector fonts include just the ASCII character sets.

The font with the best unicode coverage is the bitmap font unifont which supports over 50 thousand glyphs.

Type	Name	Sizes	Unicode?	# glyphs
Bitmap	Spleen	5x8, 6x12, 8x16, 12x24, 16x32	Some	450-1000
Bitmap	Tamzen	5x9, 6x12, 7x13, 8x15, 8x16, 10x20 bold/regular	Some	180
Bitmap	Unifont	16x16	Yes. Plane 0, 1	113446
Bitmap	Unscii	8x8, 8x16	Some	3240
Vector	gridfont		Lower case ASCII only	68
Vector	gridfont_smooth		Lower case ASCII only	68
Vector	arcade		Upper case ASCII only	66

txt <- "二項分布\xF0\x9F\x8E\xB2の英語表記は\n「Binomial distribution」である。"

bitmap_text_raster(txt, "unifont") |>
  plot()

When a particular unicode glyph is not available, some fonts define a default character which should be used instead.

If a default character is not defined for a font then unknown characters will use ?

Here is an example of looking for the thumbs-down and thumbs-up glyphs.

codepoints <- c(0x1f44d, 0x1f44e)

unifont <- get_lofi_font('unifont')
unifont

#> [lofi bitmap font] 16 x 16. 113446 codepoints.  Width min/median/max = 8, 16, 16

# Unifont has both of these
codepoints %in% unifont$glyph_info$codepoint

#> [1] TRUE TRUE

bitmap_text_raster(intToUtf8(codepoints), 'unifont') |> plot()

spleen <- get_lofi_font('spleen-5x8')
spleen

#> [lofi bitmap font] 5 x 8. 472 codepoints.

# This spleen font has neither
codepoints %in% spleen$glyph_info$codepoint

#> [1] FALSE FALSE

bitmap_text_raster(intToUtf8(codepoints), 'spleen-5x8') |> plot()