Naskh Font
Definition
Naskh Font: It is the first of a group of computer fonts that are currently under production in King Fahd Glorious Qur’an Printing Complex in Madinah. It is a computer font that was built in accordance with the unified international coding “Unicode”, a global system that enables data to transfer across different systems and devices without displaying it in a distorted way, no matter how many companies that manufacture the systems and languages, and the countries through which this data passes.
With the support of Allah, this computer font was built and fully developed by the staff in the Research and Development Unit in the Information Technology Department at King Fahd Glorious Qur’an Printing Complex, through the following work stages:
Specifying the staff, studying and analyzing the project requirements, taking into account the many problems and errors that were discovered in the common Arabic computer fonts, including a number of well-known computer fonts, such as the Traditional Arabic font from Microsoft and Lotus font from Linotype and etc.
Preparing a timely, informed plan for the implementation and review stages, and implementing the amendments and improvements that are proposed during the examination and audit stages.
Writing single letters and all other combinations by the calligrapher of al-Madinah al-Nabawiyyah Musḥaf, Shaikh ‘Uthmān Ṭaha.
Commencing the programming work by specialized programmers, under the supervision and review of the calligrapher of the Musḥaf.
Launching the first experimental version of Alpha, and making it available for use within KFGQPC, as well as collecting, considering and refining notes and suggestions, and implementing the appropriate ones.
Launching the first version and making it available for download from the website dedicated to the computer fonts of the King Fahd Glorious Qur’an Printing Complex.
Key Features
The Naskh font is distinguished from many other computer fonts by the following:
A- The beauty of the font and its combinations.
B- It took into account the applying a number of well-known rules in Arabic calligraphy, such as:
• Taking into account writing the letter (ع) - followed by the letter (أ) or the letter (ل) - in the optimal way according to the following shape:
Which is written in other computer fonts like this:
• Taking into account the way of writing the edges and their different structures according to their order in a single word. For example, when writing a word that has two or more consecutive edges, it is necessary to distinguish between the edges, so that they do not appear as the edges of the letter (س), such as:
• The shape of the edges that follow the letter (ل) directly was also taken into consideration, such as:
Likewise, the shape of the edge preceding the letter (ر), such as:
The letters mentioned in the following figure appear in many other fonts like this:
• Taking into account the preservation of the natural shape of the letter (لا) when placing a diacritical mark on the letter (ل), so it would be written like this:
And not as it appears in some other fonts like this:
• Using the singular letter (هـ) shape that is used to denote the Hijri year date without the need to include it as a symbol such as:
• Determining the diacritics of letters and words accurately, such as:
This is compared to the following figure:
• There are many other technical notes that were taken into account in the “Naskh font”.