I am having problem with my Android application. Which is not displaying some special letters ie, complex/combined letters (KOOTTAKSHARAM) from Malayalam language.
In my application I am using WebView to load the html prepared with Unicode chars received from server. The font ‘Thoolika.ttf’ is loading from asset.
Later I was used ascii text from server, and .ttf font file and worked without problem. I tried UTF-8 conversion also, but didn’t help.
So I would like to know is it possible to display complex/combined letters (KOOTTAKSHARAM) from Malayalam language, using Unicode chars and Unicode font file (.ttf) ?
The split rendering of Koottaksharam and Chillu in Malayalam is not the real issue. The real issue is – only a few manufacturers support Malayalam Unicode fonts, and little of them renders Malayalam correctly.
You can read Malayalam in Samsung, but NOT in HTC, LG, Sony etc. Google has added native support for Malayalam in JellyBean (v.4.1)
The only workaround is – convert the Unicode text into ASCII codes, use that ASCII text in components, and load the font dynamically. You can see that at Manoramaonline.com – see the HTML source – they are not using Unicode, instead they are using some symbols, and displays those symbols using their own font, which eventually looks like Malayalam text.
Mathrubhumi.com has a mobile version of their website, which uses the same technique. You can read Malayalam perfectly even when there’s no support for it. I think they are first typing out the ASCII version (to publish for Print and Android) and converts it into Unicode later (to publish in Websites)
There are many ASCII-to-Unicode converters like http://aksharangal.com/ and one famous Unocode-to-ASCII converter is – http://smc.org.in/silpa/ASCII2Unicode