Babelmap (original) (raw)
Released 6th October 2024 • Version 16.0.0.5
- Updated Unicode data for Unicode 16.0.0 data.
- Updated Emoji data for Emoji 16.0
- Added initial basic support for the proposed update to the OpenType specification to support fonts with up to 16,777,216 glyphs (24 bit glyph IDs): recognizes and can parse the proposed new GLYF, LOCA, and MAXP tables; accepts Format 12 and 13 CMAP subtables with glyph indexes greater tha 65535, but is currently unable to render glyphs with indexes greater than 65535; uses the proposed new Format 15 CMAP subtable (Unicode variation sequences with 24 bit glyph indexes) if present, but is currently unable to render glyphs with indexes greater than 65535.
- In Composite Font mode, the font configured for the Ideographic Symbols and Punctuation block (16FE0..16FFF) is now overridden for non-Han characters: for U+16FE0 (Tangut Iteration Mark) the font configured for the Tangut block is used; for U+16FE1 (Nushu Iteration Mark) the font configured for the Nushu block is used; and for U+16FE4 (Khitan Small Script Filler) the font configured for the Khitan Small Script block is used.
- Added Zhuang readings for CJK characters based on the kZhuang key in the Unihan database.
- Now uses the Unikemet database for descriptions of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
- Added Tangut readings based on Miyake 2012 ("Complexity from Compression: a Sketch of Pre-Tangut").
- The Advanced Character Search now has an option to filter by Unicode block.
- Corrected the historic names for U+B77C (HANGUL SYLLABLE RA) through U+B9C7 (HANGUL SYLLABLE RIH) which used HANGUL SYLLABLE L- instead of HANGUL SYLLABLE R- for Unicode versions 2.0.14 through 2.1.8 inclusively.
- Corrected the character count for Telugu and Kannada blocks shown at the top of the character grid (version 16.0.0.1 had "101" and "92" characters respectively due to an issue with the addition and subsequent removal of TELUGU ARCHAIC SHRII at U+0C5C and KANNADA ARCHAIC SHRII at U+0CDC during the 16.0 review period).
- No longer supports bitmap fonts.
- Release Notes
This free Unicode character map is far more powerful than the standard Windows character map. It supports the latest version of Unicode. If you work extensively with special characters I recommend it. The main dialog (below) has buttons on the right to scroll quickly through Unicode blocks, or you can select the Unicode Block from the drop down list. Right-click on any character to zoom in and view it on a popup. Select the font from the Single Font drop down list, or view all characters available across multiple fonts by using a composite font. The font size used by the Edit Buffer can also be set.
Use the search fields to find a character by name (or part of a name), or by its Unicode code-point (hexadecimal or decimal).
Copy characters to the edit buffer with double-click. The edit buffer can show characters, hex codes, decimal codes, or Unicode Character Numbers, and whichever is currently viewed can be copied to the Windows clipboard for pasting into other applications. The edit buffer can thus be used to convert text to codes, and vice versa.
From the menus at the top of the dialog you can access many advanced features to analyse fonts in detail. For example, you can use colour coding to filter characters in various ways. Below, the characters are colour coded by Unicode version, showing how different characters were gradually added to the Unicode standard.
The Font Analysis utility (F7) will show which Unicode blocks are contained in a font, or find which fonts on your system cover different Unicode blocks.
The Font Information dialog will reveal details about the current font such as naming, description, license agreement, designer links, and supported platforms.
The help file is not included with the download, and has not been updated to my knowledge. You can download the old help file for version 1.8, which will tell you most of what you need to know, and quite a lot that you probably don’t.
Page last updated on 19 October 2024