Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Hierdie gesprek is in die argief. Vra asseblief 'n nuwe vraag as jy hulp nodig het.

Why can't firefox on Mac OS 10.6.8 display indic languages such as Oriya, when font is provided via @font-face, whereas Safari et. al. can?

  • 6 antwoorde
  • 2 hierdie probleem
  • 1 view
  • Laaste antwoord deur guyvonh

more options

This appears to be a problem with all versions of firefox on all Mac OS 10.x machines that do not already have an Oriya font installed. Bascially, when @font-face is used (even "bullet-proof" renditions such as the one from font squirrel), the Oriya text (unicode range 0B00–0B7F) displays fine on, for example, Safari 5.1.1. and Chrome 15.0.874.121, but only appears as boxes on firefox. It seems as though Firefox on mac isn't able to utilize font-face fonts on unicode characters that lie outside of the basic latin range. Hopefully there is a fix or work around that does not involve reconfiguring firefox (as that is not a user friendly approach).

Example website: http://www.odiasahitya.com/

This appears to be a problem with all versions of firefox on all Mac OS 10.x machines that do not already have an Oriya font installed. Bascially, when @font-face is used (even "bullet-proof" renditions such as the one from font squirrel), the Oriya text (unicode range 0B00–0B7F) displays fine on, for example, Safari 5.1.1. and Chrome 15.0.874.121, but only appears as boxes on firefox. It seems as though Firefox on mac isn't able to utilize font-face fonts on unicode characters that lie outside of the basic latin range. Hopefully there is a fix or work around that does not involve reconfiguring firefox (as that is not a user friendly approach). Example website: http://www.odiasahitya.com/

All Replies (6)

more options

One more piece of information that may be helpful: Just so you know, @font-face does indeed work on characters within the latin range. I tested that by going to http://craigmod.com/journal/font-face/

Indeed fonts that are not installed on my mac display correctly on that webpage; so the issue appears to only be characters outside of the basic, latin range (on ff on mac).

Gewysig op deur guyvonh

more options

Is downloadable fonts enabled?

You can check the value of the gfx.downloadable_fonts.enabled pref on the about:config page, via the location bar.

more options

Thanks for the response. Yes it is.

But, as stated, @font-face does indeed work. It just doesn't seem to work with international unicode ranges.

Gewysig op deur guyvonh

more options

For interested parties: I submitted this as a bug.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=706221

more options

So it is a limitation on Mac with OpenType fonts:

Jonathan Kew:

The issue here is that Firefox on OS X doesn't support fonts requiring OpenType Layout for Indic scripts, it only supports AAT fonts. This is because the Core Text framework on OS X didn't support Indic OpenType behavior, at least up through v10.6, and so the font would not render correctly. I think 10.7 may have introduced more capabilities in this area; if so, we should revise the font code in Gecko so that it accepts such fonts.

Gewysig op deur cor-el

more options

Johnathan provided some good information. I don't believe, however, that the issue is a Mac limitation because, as stated, Safari is able to display the font even in 10.6.7 (prior to any language support expansion introduced in Lion).

You can also view that the problem persists even when using Apple's own AAT Oriya font:

http://worldwide.familyradio.org/test/test4/